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PLACE OF PRIVILEGE AND 
POWER IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 


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THE PASTOR'S PLACE OF 
PRIVILEGE AND POWER 
IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 


BY E. A. FOX 


eneral Secretary Kentucky Siaiag School Association 


ay 


NASHVILLE, TENN., DALLAS, TEX. 
PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE M. E. CHURCH, "30UTH 
SMITH & LAMAR, AGENTS 
1907 


BY 
SmitH & LAMAR 


hh ee 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
PAGE 
PASTORAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL...... 13 
CHAPTER II. 
IAS(QUESTION OF RELATIONS 0. 6. cceccccsecceccecs 28 
- CHAPTER III. 
BEN, PUMPORTAND! REPORT: oec\istye cee vale cca ctinwacas 36 
CHAPTER IV. 
Wuat Some LEADING PASTORS SAY........ee0ee: 43 
CHAPTER V. 
TuHeE Pastor’s PREPARATION FOR LEADERSHIP...... 50 
CHAPTER VI. 
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP........... 67 
CHAPTER VII. 
AGENCIES THROUGH WHICH THE Pastor May Ex- 
BRUISES FINS. LEADERSHIM, is « Soide"s se rnt ack 9- oe we 81 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THe Pastor AND His SUPERINTENDENT..........% 106 


314986 


8 The Pastor in the Sunday School. 


CHAPTER IX. ae ee 
THE PASTOR AND THE PARENTS........-sseeceree 122 
CHAPTER X. 
THE PAsToR AND THE LAMBS OF THE FOLD........ 129 
CHAPTER XI. 
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL 2e.aeccas ss vices sale ete teks oe 138 


CHAPTER XII. 


GRADING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL...........eeeeeeees 159 


CHAPTER XIII. 


Stupies IN Human NAaTurRE BY DEPARTMENTS.... 180 


PREFACE. 


It may seem presumptuous for a layman to 
undertake to write a book for pastors. The pal- 
liation lies in three directions. 

1. The theological seminaries up to this time 
have done little or nothing toward educating 
their students for Sunday school work, and most 
Sunday school books deal sparingly with the 
subject. The need, therefore, for such a book 
seems great. 

2. I have made a special study of Sunday 
school work for more than eight years, and a 
special study of that work as it relates to the 
pastor for five years. 

3. Our Pastors’ Sunday School Institute, 
which has met for five successive years in Louis- 
ville, has given me opportunity to get the views 
of the leading pastors and laymen of America 
on the subject, and it is chiefly for this reason 
that I had the courage to undertake so impor- 
tant a work. While the thoughts and the lan- 
guage in which they are expressed are my own, 


(9) 


314986 


10 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


unless otherwise stated, these thoughts are to a 
large extent the combined wisdom of the princi- 
pal speakers and writers on the subject. If 
there is such a thing as a compilation of ideas, 
it is to be found in this book. 

I have gone on the assumption that the pas- 
tor is a man of both ideas and action, and that 
what he will most appreciate is not methods but 
principles and suggestions. Only those sub- 
jects are discussed that lie at the basis of all 
success, such as grading, principles of Sunday 
school management, principles of teaching, and 
a brief study in the elements of child study. 
These, for the most part, are too difficult for the 
average superintendent or teacher and underlie 
all methods. The only use made of methods is 
to illustrate a point, to show what is being done, 
or to point out the pastor’s relation and oppor- 
tunity. This, however, has afforded an oppor- 
tunity to bring into the book practically every 
4 modern method of note. It has also given the 
Ci detias to \indicate where ‘further information 
canbe secured if desired. 

In all our Pastors’ Sunday School Institutes 


~ 


And Power in the Sunday School. Il 


we have sought to dignify and magnify the work 
of the pastor in the eyes of all Sunday school 
workers, and to bring him into that place of priv- 
ilege and power that will enable him to lead the 
Sunday school to a success in its work that is im- 
possible without his leadership. The object of 

this book is the same. A few quotations and a 
few expressions by the author may seem a little 
harsh and critical in cold type; but those who 
know the author personally know that there 
is always a smile in his heart for the pas- 
tor, and that he always lays the blame for 
any shortcomings of the pastor in this re- 
gard on “us laymen” rather than on the pastor. 
There is no class of men on earth that he has a 
higher regard or greater love for than our pas- 
tors; and if this book should prove a help and 
an inspiration to one of the humblest of them all, 
he will be abundantly satisfied. 

Thanks are due the Sunday School Times, 
The World Evangel, and The Pilgrim Teacher 
for permission to use a few extracts from arti- 
cles which originally occurred in their columns. 

Tue AuTHor. 


CHAPTER I. 
PASTORAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


ORIGIN AND CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE IDEA, 


One of the strange things in connection with 
our Sunday school work is that we have been so 
long in coming to the natural and inevitable 
conclusion that the pastor is, and of right 
ought to be, the leader in the Sunday school. 
While this idea has been advocated here and 
there by occasional speakers and writers, it re- 
mained for the Kentucky Sunday School Asso- 
ciation to give it definite form and direction 
through the Pastors’ Sunday School Institute, 
which was inaugurated in the city of Louisville, 
December, 1902, and which has held annual ses- 
sions ever since, There had been Pastors’ In- 
stitutes, Sunday School Institutes, Pastors’ Con- 
ferences, etc., in connection with conventions, 
but upon investigation it was found that this 
was the first Pastors’ Sunday School Institute 


(13) 


14 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


ever held in the world, and in the opinion of our 
leaders it marked an epoch in the history of 
Sunday schools. For four days, under the lead- 
ership of Dr. A. F. Schauffler, Mr. Marion Law- 
rance, and Dr. B. W. Spilman, the problems and 
the work of the Sunday school and the pastor’s 
relation to them were discussed. A full account 
of this first Institute may be secured from the 
Sunday School Times for seven cents. 

Perhaps the real work of this now historic 
Institute cannot be better summarized than in 
this series of brief statements prepared by the 
writer and unanimously agreed upon at its close: 

First, recognizing that the Sunday school is 
the open door of opportunity, that childhood is 
the battle ground of the kingdom, and that when 
we save a child we save a soul plus a life of 
service, we call upon pastors everywhere to use 
their utmost endeavor to increase the efficien- 
cy of their Sunday schools, so that the children 
may be won for Christ and trained in a life of 
service for him. 

Secondly, as quickly as possible our theolog- 
ical seminaries should plan to give instruction 


* 


And Power in the Sunday School. 15 


to their students: (1) in systematic Bible study 
suitable for Sunday school teachers; (2) in the 
fundamental elements of pedagogy and child 
study; (3) in the latest approved methods of 
Sunday school work. 

Thirdly, as a rule the pastor should not super- 
intend his own Sunday school, nor teach a class 
regularly, but he should be the superintendent 
of his superintendent and the teacher of his 
teachers. 

Fourthly, the pastor is the leader in the Sun- 
day school as much as in any other service of 
the Church, and as such he is primarily respon- 
sible for its success or failure. He should, there- 
fore, seek to prepare himself for successful lead- 
ership therein by attending Sunday school insti- 
tutes and conventions, reading the best books and 
periodicals on the subject, and by such other 
means as present themselves from time to time. 

Fifthly, the Sunday school is not the place 
for children only, but for all. Our motto should 
be: “All the Church in the Sunday school and 
all the Sunday school in the Church all the time.” 

Sixthly, teaching is the most important serv- 


16 The Pastor's Place of: Privilege 


ice of the Sunday school; therefore the pastor 
should be prepared to train his teachers in the 
training class and in the teachers’ meeting. 


THE MEANING OF PASTORAL LEADERSHIP. 


Pastoral leadership in the Sunday school is 
comparatively a new idea, and, like all new ideas, 
it has been misunderstood by some. Some seem 
to have gotten the idea that the purpose is to 
put the whole work of the Sunday school on the 
pastor and make mere figureheads of the super- 
intendent and teachers. Naturally this has been 
resented by busy pastors and interested super- 
intendents and teachers. Jt may be plainly stated 
that the idea ts not that the pastor should do the 
work of either the superintendent or the teach- 
ers, or that he should interfere with their work 
in any way, but rather that by wise direction of 
their efforts he should do a larger work through 
them than either he or they can possibly do by 
working alone; and furthermore, that while, ex 
officio, he is the head of the Sunday school, and 
while his leadership should therefore be oficial, 
but not officious, he should lead by right of the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 17 


sovereignty of competency rather than by right 
of position. 


FACTORS IN SECURING PASTORAL LEADERSHIP. 


In all new movements there must be a period 
of preparation and seed-sowing. In the prepara- 
tion for pastoral leadership there are at least four 
important factors : 

t. The Pastors Themselves——The pastors 
themselves must be convinced that it is their 
duty to lead, and so thoroughly convinced that 
they will prepare themselves for leadership. 
Many are already convinced of this fact, but 
many more are not, so a campaign of education 
along this line must be inaugurated. The pas- 
tor is the only man in the Church who is pre- 
sumed to have had training for the work of the 
Church. He has a mind trained to think, and 
trained to think especially along the lines of 
Church development. Why has he turned this 
important subject of the religious training of 
the young almost entirely over to the untrained 
and too frequently irreligious laymen? Why 
have we laymen permitted him to do so? 


° 
< 


18 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


2. The Theological Seminary.—The seminary 
is the place where pastors are trained, if not 
made. For some unaccountable reason our sem- 
inaries until recently have almost entirely ig- 
nored the Sunday school work in their curricula. 
They seem to have gone on the assumption that 
their students could get all necessary training 
by working in the Sunday schools in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the seminary. But the trouble 
has been that these Sunday schools, for the most 
part, are running along the same old lines that 
they have been running along for a quarter of a 
century, and there is little of inspiration or infor- 
mation in them. Another trouble is that the 
student goes from the seminary into the pas- 
torate with no adequate idea of the importance 
of the work, no idea (or perhaps a wrong one) 
of his relation to it, and no information as to the 
best ideas in Sunday school work. 

3. Our Great Denominational Weeklies.— 
These are the molders of public sentiment, as well 
as the media of expression for it. It is safe to say 
that, with the exception of a brief exposition of 
the International Lessons, our great denomina- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 19 


tional weeklies are not giving one-tenth of one 
per cent of their space to the discussion of the 
Sunday school and its work. If our editors and 
contributors think so little of the Sunday school 
as to thus neglect it, is it any wonder our pas- 
tors and people are not responding as many of 
us think they should? Where is there a more 
powerful agency to advance the interests of the 
Sunday school work than these great papers? 
Perhaps we Sunday school workers have been 
more to blame than any one else. Let us pro- 
ceed to remedy this as quickly as possible. 

4. Public Opinion.—Public opinion is a great 
power in the Church as well as in the State. We 
have not created a demand for trained pastors, 
Sunday school curricula in our seminaries, nor 
space in our papers; therefore they have not 
come. Many a pastor is ready and willing to 
lead out in new lines in Sunday school work, but 
the superintendent and others regard it as an 
intrusion and block the way. We often hear our 
minister criticised for poor sermons, for the few 
pastoral visits he makes, for dry prayer meetings, 
and for a score of other things; but seldom, if 


20 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


ever, for the failure of a Sunday school. Why? 
Because public opinion has not been aroused to 
demand it, or even to tolerate his “interference” 
with the Sunday school. 

When a pastor is to be called, the first ques- 
tion is, “Is he a good preacher?” and the next is, 
“Ts he a good pastor?” After that comes a va- 
riety of questions. The daughters want to know 
if he is married; the mothers want to know the 
size of his family; some will ask if he wears 
up-to-date clothes; some will wonder if his wife 
does her own sewing or whether she “hires” it 
done; and so on and on they go asking every 
conceivable question, except this one, “Is he a 
good Sunday school man?’ Now don’t you 
think this ought to be the third question, to 
say the least? This is but another evidence that 
we are asleep and need to be awakened all along 
the line to the importance of the Sunday school, 
and especially to the importance of having a live 
Sunday school man and an efficient Sunday 
school leader in the person of our pastor. When 
public opinion is sufficiently aroused to demand 
this, we shall get it. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 21 


These are four vital factors in Sunday school 
progress. Those who see the need for better 
things in Sunday school work must lead the way. 
We must ask a hearing in the columns of these 
papers, and I am sure it will not be denied us. 
When we get a hearing, then we must proceed 
to mold public sentiment in favor of pastoral 
leadership. We must demand trained pastors, 
and make the demand so strong that the sem- 
inaries will heed our cry and give us trained 
and enthusiastic Sunday school pastors; and 
when we get them, the brightest day in the his- 
tory of the Sunday school will have dawned. 


IN WHAT PASTORAL LEADERSHIP CONSISTS. 


Pastoral leadership in the Sunday school con- 
sists : 

1. In preparation for leadership. In his prep- 
aration he must master every detail of the mod- 
ern Sunday school, know its inspiring history 
and its splendid record of souls saved, instructed, 
and trained for the Master’s service, and, above 
all, he should study the question until there comes 
into his heart an abiding and an overpowering 


22 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege 


conviction of its importance in the economy of 
God’s plans for the salvation of the world. He 
should not only know but should realize in all 
its fullness and power that the children of to- 
day will be the Church of to-morrow, and that 
childhood is indeed the real battle ground of 
the kingdom and the hope of the Church. 

2. In the training of officers and teachers 
through whom he is to do his work. In order to 
carry out his plans he must have skilled as well 
as consecrated workmen, and experience has 
shown that the only way to get them is to train 
them. The Training Class, the Teachers’ Meet- 
ing, and the Officers’ and Teachers’ Library are 
the three great means for training in the hands 
of every pastor. If, in addition to the technical 
training thus obtained, he will induce them to 
attend conventions, institutes, local unions, sum- 
mer schools, etc., he will soon find that he has not 
only competent but enthusiastic workers. Since 
the pastor is responsible for the success of the 
Sunday school, since the success of the Sunday 
school depends upon the competency of the offi- 
cers and teachers, and since competent officers 


And Power in the Sunday School. 23 


and teachers can be secured only by training 
them, the conclusion cannot be escaped that the 
pastor is primarily responsible for this training. 
3. In popularizing the Sunday school in the 
community and in magnifying it in the eyes of 
the officials and membership of the Church. In 
his pastoral visits and in his pulpit he should 
use every opportunity to popularize and build up 
the Sunday school. Once a year, at least, the 
work of the Sunday school should be brought in 
review before the entire congregation. The oc- 
casion should be made of so much importance 
as to insure the attendance of practically the 
whole Church. It should take the place of the 
most popular service hour, whether it be the elev- 
en-o’clock service or the evening service. The 
work that the school is doing, is trying to do, 
should be presented in a bright, attractive way. 
Let there be no fussing or fault-finding. The pas- 
tor should make a strong, earnest, and loving plea 
for the school. The children should have a prom- 
inent part in the exercises. Those who are 
worthy of it should be promoted with honors 
and a public recognition of their work. An honor 


24 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


roll should be exhibited, giving the names of 
those who have been faithful in any line. The 
officers and teachers should be installed in a brief 
but impressive service. The parents should be 
urged to attend the Sunday school; and if they 
cannot, or will not, at least insist on their join- 
ing the Home Department. 

If, in addition to this, regular quarterly re- 
ports of each pupil were sent to the parents, 
and also an annual report of the entire school 
(mimeographed in the smaller schools and 
printed in the larger schools), the parents 
would perhaps show more interest in the Sun- 
day school work. One reason they show so 
little interest is that they know so little about 
it; another is that so little is made of the Sunday 
school before the congregation that it is mini- 
mized in the eyes of the whole Church and com- 
munity. If the Sunday school would do some- 
thing worth while and then let the people and 
parents know it, the pastor taking the lead in it 
all, the Sunday school would soon command the 
attention in the community it so richly deserves. 

4. In the introduction into the school of the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 25 


latest approved methods. He should secure a 
thoroughly up-to-date building, well equipped 
in all its appointments; he should see that the 
school is thoroughly graded, having thorough 
departmental and class organization, a Home 
Department, a Cradle Roll, and a Training De- 
partment; he should provide a complete system 
of records, a systematic plan of visitation, and all 
other things necessary for effective work. 

5. In the cultivation of those qualities of mind 
and heart that characterize successful leadership. 
But it is possible that a pastor may do all this 
and yet fail of that enthusiastic following that will 
insure success. He should ever be tactful, cour- 
teous, reasonable, frank, firm, kind, good-hu- 
mored, resourceful, and determined. He should 
inspire confidence in his leadership by leading 
successfully. A few failures will make his work- 
ers distrust him, and they will thereafter under- 
take anything he suggests (if at all) with half- 
heartedness and a fear that it will fail. On the 
other hand, a few victories where defeat seems 
imminent will inspire confidence and courage, 
and shortly his workers will follow him wher- 


26 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


ever he chooses to lead, confident of victory in 
the end. 

One of the strongest elements of leadership 
is the ability to arouse in others a desire for 
achievement and to put courage into their hearts 
that will not brook defeat. But this presupposes 
on the part of the leader a thorough knowledge 
in every detail of the work undertaken and an 
overpowering love for it. Pastoral leadership 
in the Sunday school demands both of these qual- 
ities in the pastor. 

A pastor’s presence should be as a live wire in 
the Sunday school, the teachers’ meeting, and 
every organization in the Church. He should 
galvanize into life and renewed activity every 
interest in the Church. His very presence should 
be an inspiration, his every word a call to vic- 
tory. The word “failure” should be cut out of 
his vocabulary and “success” written in his face 
and voice. Men will follow such a man to vic- 
tory or defeat and count it a privilege. 

6. In creating an esprit de corps and engender- 
ing a holy enthusiasm for the work among par-— 
ents, officers, teachers, and pupils. As the school 


And Power in the Sunday School. 24 


advances from victory to victory an esprit de 
corps will be established, an enthusiasm will be 
engendered, a confidence produced, such that the 
gates of hell cannot prevail against it. But in 
if all let it be remembered that the superintendent 
and teachers should keenly feel and appreciate 
their responsibility, that their work should be 
magnified in their own eyes and in the eyes of 
the school, and that at all times they should feel 
the liberty, independence, and freedom that come 
only through competent and sympathetic leader- 
ship and a consciousness of complete preparation 
for the service demanded of them. 


CHAPTER IL. 
A QUESTION OF RELATIONS. 


The relation of the Sunday school to the 
Church has been discussed until it is threadbare, 
but the duty of the pastor and the Church to the 
Sunday school depends upon this relation. Re- 
lations are just as important in the life of the 
Church as in the life of the family. Our relation 
to anything always determines our attitude to- 
ward it and our duty to it. If we do not think 
logically, we do not act consistently. 


THE RELATION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TO THE 
CHURCH. 


The Sunday school has been called the nursery 
of the Church, the cradle of the Church, the open 
door to the Church, the auxiliary of the Church, 
each of which contains elements of truth, but 
none of which expresses the whole truth. The 
Sunday school is the teaching service and the 
training department of the Church. In other 


(28) 


The Pastor in the Sunday School. 2y 


words, the Sunday school is not something apart 
from the Church, or even a part of the Church. 
It is the Church engaged in the teaching and 
study of God’s Word in such a way as to win 
souls for Christ, build them up in Christ, and 
then train them for a life of service for Christ. 
If this be true, then it is plainly the duty of the 
Church to meet every condition necessary to its 
success, and it is the duty of the pastor to see 
that it does so. 

The Sunday school has been called by some 
thoughtless phrase-maker the children’s Church. 
A more mischievous phrase could not be coined. 
It does not contain a single element of truth. 
Every time a person uses it, except to condemn it, 
he does both the Church and the Sunday school 
a positive harm. Another mischievous state- 
ment is sometimes made by overzealous Sunday 
school workers—that if children cannot attend 
both the preaching service and the Sunday school 
they had better attend the Sunday school; and 
occasionally a preacher will make the statement 
that if children cannot attend both the preaching 
service and the Sunday school they had better 


30 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


give up the Sunday school, and sometimes will 
add the unwarranted statement that the Sunday 
school is man-made anyhow, whereas the Church 
is divine. All such statements injure both the 
teaching service and the preaching service, and 
show a feeling in the heart of those who make 
them that will preclude the highest Christian 
service in either. It is not a question of which, 
but of both, as they bear such a vital relation to 
each other that under present conditions one can 
scarcely exist without the other. Each is a serv- 
ice of the Church, and as such should receive the 
most careful consideration of the pastor and 
his Church officers. 


THE RELATION OF TEACHING TO PREACHING. 


The relation of teaching and preaching is just 
as close and vital as that of the Church and Sun- 
day school. Teaching is the foundation on which 
to rear the superstructure of preaching. Any 
student of the Bible or of human nature can 
plainly see this. Through all the dreary -cen- 
turies, from Abraham to Christ, God was di- 
rectly, or through his chosen servants, teaching a 


And Power in the Sunday School. 31 


nation in order that the preaching of later days 
might be effective in winning the world to Christ. 
True, there was some preaching in those days, 
but the dominant idea in all God’s plans was 
. teaching. 

It would perhaps be difficult to make a clear 
distinction between teaching and preaching. It 
is doubtful if Christ ever preached a sermon in 
the modern sense of that term. We usually 
speak of the “Sermon on the Mount,” but Mat- 
thew says that he opened his mouth and “taught” 
them, and it is plain that the one distinctive pur- 
pose in this discourse is instruction. At least 
nine-tenths of Christ’s recorded discourses are 
more in the nature of teaching than preaching. 
I do not infer from this that Christ meant to 
teach by his example that teaching is more im- 
portant than preaching; but I do believe that he 
intended us to see that preaching, to be the most 
effective, must be preceded by teaching. So far 
as the records show, Peter’s one sermon at Pen- 
tecost won four or five times as many converts 
as Christ won in the three and a half years of 
his ministry ; and it was evidently owing largely 


32 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


to Christ’s patient, persistent teaching that this 
was made possible. 

It has always been true, is true to-day, and al- 
ways will be true, that people must be taught 
concerning Christ before they can be won to ~ 
Christ. This is one reason why so many con- 
verts in the past have either backslidden or 
proved of so little worth to the Church. They - 
were imperfectly taught. Teaching prepares the 
soil for the seed of the gospel and opens the way 
for a rich harvest of souls. It does seem that, if 
for no other reason than that his preaching might 
be effective, the pastor would be willing to pre- 
pare himself for leadership in the Sunday school. 
The most unsatisfactory congregation in all the 
world to preach to is a non-Bible-reading congre- 
gation. The Church that has poor teaching will 
always have poor preaching, even though it have 
a good preacher. 


DUTIES OF THE PASTOR GROWING OUT OF THESE 
RELATIONS. 


If the Sunday school is the teaching service of 
the Church, if it is necessary to make the preach- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 33 


ing service more effective, then we are certainly 
warranted in the conclusion that the pastor of 
the Church is also pastor of the Sunday school, 
and therefore its leader. If, as statistics show, 
approximately eighty-five per cent of our con- 
verts, ninety-five per cent of our preachers, sev- 
enty-five per cent of our Churches, and ninety 
per cent of our efficient Church workers come 
through the Sunday school; if seventy-five per 
cent of all converts to-day are under twenty-one 
years of age; if the children gather there in 
larger numbers than in any other service of the 
Church—then surely the Sunday school is worthy 
of the pastor’s best efforts. 

Peter was the first preacher under the new 
dispensation. In those love-compelling questions 
recorded in St. John xxi. Christ exhorted him 
twice to feed his lambs to where he exhorted 
him once to feed his sheep; but somehow Peter 
seems not to have learned the lesson, neither have 
many of his successors to this day. 

Any pastor will admit without any argument, 
and too frequently without any thought, that the 
children are the hope of the Church; and yet, 


3 


fae BS |) ee 


34 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


notwithstanding the fact that so much of every- 
thing of value in his Church has come from the 
Sunday school, as shown above, under his lead- 
ership and guidance the Church goes right on 
giving most of its time, effort, and money to the 
adults. Here is a fact that should give us pause: 
A large majority of the children, even of our 
Church members to-day, never hear the Word 
of God, never hear a prayer, never join in songs 
of praise except in the Sunday school. Family 
worship is largely a thing of the past. The 
children are not attending the preaching service. 
Then if they do not hear these things in the 
Sunday school, where do they hear them? This 
certainly places a great responsibility on the 
Sunday school, and therefore ndicates to us the 
real opportunity of the Church in the Sunday 
school. Are we realizing it and doing anything 
to meet the responsibility and use the opportuni- 
ty? In building our Churches, are we giving 
due regard to the demands of the Sunday school? 
In making out our annual budget of expenses, 
do we not rather plan to get all we can out of the 
Sunday school rather than to put what we can 


Ala 


And Power in the Sunday School. 35 


into it? In fact, does the Church as a Church 
give any consideration to the Sunday school? 
Does the Church ask for a report of the work 
and needs of the Sunday school and then con- 
sider them in a business-like, sympathetic way? 
Rather, isn’t the Sunday school allowed to shift 
for itself? If the children are the hope of the 
Church, if the children are reached. in larger 
numbers by the Sunday school than by any other 
organization of the Church, if the pastor is the 
head of the Church, then the pastor’s duty to the 
Sunday school is plain. 


CHAPTER III. 
AN IMPORTANT REPORT. 


At the Pastors’ Sunday School Institute, held 
in Louisville in February, 1906, a committee, 
with Dr. E. Y. Mullins as chairman, was ap- 
pointed to summarize the teachings of the Insti- 
tute in concise and convenient form. Dr. Mul- 
lins himself has given special attention to the 
work of the Sunday school, and he had associ- 
ated with him on this committee Dr. Gross Alex- 
ander and Dr. S. S. Waltz, all three of whom 
are men of intellectual power and men who have 
given special thought to the subject. This ought, 
therefore, to be an exceedingly important docu- 
ment and ought to carry a great deal of weight 
with it. 

PastorAL LEADERSHIP OF SuNDAy ScHoot Forces. 


The pastor is the leader of the Sunday school forces 
of his Church. This is true, although he is neither su- 
perintendent nor teacher. His leadership here grows 


(36) 


And Power in the Sunday School. 37 


out of his office as pastor. The Sunday school is a de- 
partment of Church work. He is thus officially Sunday 
school leader. But mere official leadership fails when 
unaided by moral and spiritual force backed by intelli- 
gence. Skill in training others to lead is the highest 
attainment of the pastoral leader. Rarely by self-asser- 
tion, frequently by self-effacement, will the pastor do his 
best work in the Sunday school. He does not absorb the 
work or function of the superintendent or teacher; he 
supplements both on the pastoral side. Indeed, he will 
jealously guard and protect them in their rights when 
necessary. The principle of pastoral leadership is the 
fundamental principle of the kingdom of God. The 
kingdom comes through human personalities. A Sun- 
day school is a group of personalities, the leader and 
the led. The school is related to a larger group, the 
Church. Pastoral leadership is necessary in the school 
because the part must be properly related to the whole. 


Tue Pastor’s RELATION TO THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


The pastor must sustain either of four relations to 
the Sunday school : 

t. He may be unsympathetic observer, with little or 
no interest in it, rarely, if ever, present at its meetings. 
To such a pastor leadership is impossible in the school. 

2. He may be sympathetic inspector, sometimes pres- 
ent, giving his approval, even observing its activities 
with interest, yet remaining apart from its inner life and 


38 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


struggles. Here also he lacks the identification with the 
school necessary to leadership. 

3. He may enact the rdle of would-be helper but 
bungling hinderer. The lack of knowledge of Sunday 
school procedure, of tact and courtesy, of insight and 
sympathy, brings this result, and of course destroys the 
possibility of leadership. 

4. He may be inspiring guide and leader, leading by 
right of his superior ability rather than by right of his 
position. This is the ideal. 


His CoNnTACT WITH THE SCHOOL. 


To this end the pastor must maintain at least three 
points of contact with the school: 

1. There must be physical contact. He must attend 
the sessions of the school and meetings of officers and 
teachers. The telephone system of absent generalship 
is impossible here. The school which his eyes see and 
his hands handle is the school which he understands and 
can lead. 

2. His contact must be intellectual, He must study 
his school and thoroughly familiarize himself with the 
latest approved methods by systematic reading and at- 
tendance upon lectures, institutes, conventions, and con- 
ferences, and by personal contact with other leaders. 
Here again the capacity for taking pains is the secret of 
success. Sunday school machinery is like that of a 
watch, made up of delicate and high and fine adjust- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 39 


ments. Its delicacy of adjustment and the ease with 
which it can be thrown out are due to the fact that it 
calls for the highest and finest qualities of human char- 
acter in its personnel and working force. To preserve 
the harmony and working efficiency of this splendid 
spiritual organism is worth any man’s careful intellectual 
effort. 

3. There should be moral and spiritual contact. The 
school is for instruction, evangelism, and Christian nur- 
ture in the first place, and only secondary for other 
things. To hold a school to its educational and spiritual 
ends is one of the highest functions of the pastoral 
leader. To this end real teaching of the Word should 
be done, teaching that will win the pupils to Christ and 
manifest itself in Christian character and Christian liv- 
ing. 


His Work FoR THE SCHOOL. 


t. As a rule it is best for the pastor not to teach a 
class at the regular session of the school or attempt to 
superintend the school. 

2. It is also probable that his most effective work in 
the school will be in reénforcing the teaching and popu- 
larizing the school. 

3. He can do much to create a Sunday school con- 
science and an atmosphere in which passion for good 
teaching will flourish by frequent mention of the school 
from his pulpit, by special services in its behalf, and by 


40 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


special work for it in his pastoral visits, thus linking the 
home to the school in such a way that its influence will 
be helpful rather than hurtful to the school. 

4. The pastor can best eliminate friction, create con- 
fidence in the superintendent and teacher on the part 
of the parents, and magnify the school in the estimation 
of the congregation by announcements from the pulpit, 
special sermons and special services in the interest of 
the school. 

5. He can, if a true leader, hold up the highest ideals 
of Sunday school teaching and work in a way to inspire 
and not depress, making of them not weights but wings 
for the discouraged or unambitious teacher. 

6. He can circulate books on the Sunday school and 
study to make the Sunday school library a power in 
advancing the highest Sunday school methods and 
ideals. 

7. Perhaps his most effective personal service to the 
school can be best rendered through the training class 
and the teachers’ meeting. Through the former he can 
give both the teachers and the prospective teachers a 
general preparation for the important work of teaching, 
and through the latter he can give them special help on 
each lesson. 

The pastor can either lead these two services in per- 
son or secure a competent leader for each, as without 
trained and skilled workmen he can never fully accom- 
plish his purposes or realize his ideals. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 41 


CREATING AN IDEAL. 


This ideal of pastoral leadership needs to be created 
or revived in our schools and Churches. Some pastors 
are timid and some superintendents resentful, the atti- 
tude on both sides being due to misunderstanding of the 
real meaning of pastoral leadership. The fact is that 
the true attitude is seen only where pastor and super- 
intendent each hold the other as indispensable to his 
own success. Our religious press can do much to create 
the ideal of pastoral leadership. The space now given 
to the matter is far too scanty. Our local and State and 
national associations, conferences, and other denomina- 
tional -gatherings should allow a much larger place on 
the programmes for this important matter. 


Tue SEMINARY’s Duty. 


The theological seminary is a prime factor in pre- 
paring pastors for leadership in the Sunday school. A 
seminary course is as significant for what it trains a 
man from as what it trains him fo, Interest in Sun- 
day school effort is often atrophied through neglect in 
theological training. Christian pedagogy and method 
need to be recognized in fitting men for the ministry. 
The science of pedagogy with its adaptation to the Sun- 
day school realm is an unknown department of learning 
to thousands of seminary graduates. In short, we may 
say in conclusion that until the Sunday school is taken 


42 The Pastor's Place of Privilege. 


seriously and at its real worth by the pastor himself, by 
the denominational paper, by the religious convention, 
by the theological seminary—until its strategic impor- 
tance as a force in God’s kingdom is recognized—we 
cannot hope to accomplish the highest results. No 
agency standing ready to the hand of the wise and skill- 
ful pastor, apart from the Church itself, can compare 
in value and importance with the Sunday school. 


CHAPTER IV. 
Wuat Some LEADING Pastors Say. 


As this is a work intended primarily for pas- 
tors, the opinions of those pastors who have 
given special attention to the Sunday school no 
doubt will be appreciated. The following quo- 
tations are carefully collected and are gleaned 
from a wide field: 


A Few Brier Quorations. 


In the majority of Churches the pastor has got to be 
the one to teach the teachers how to teach.—Dr. Schauf- 
fler. 


The pastor is the chief officer of the Sunday school in 
the same way that the President of the United States is 
commander in chief of the army.—Dr. Foster. 


No minister is faithful to the responsibilities and ob- 
ligations of his office as a pastor who neglects any part 
of his work. The chief functions of the pastoral office 
in the Sunday school are supervision and instruction — 
Dr. Cunnyngham. 


(43) 


44 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


It will be conceded by thoughtful readers that there 
is no adequate appreciation of the Sunday school on the 
part of many pastors. The Sunday school must more 
and more prove a factor of power in the pastor’s way. 
It would be wise if every pastor would make it a rule 
never to let a year pass without reading at least one 
good book on preaching and one on missions and one 
on the Sunday school.—Dr, Mullins, 


The Sunday school of the pastor’s Church is his Sun- 
day school in the same sense that the pulpit of his church 
is his pulpit. This being so, it follows that if a pastor 
is what he ought to be—or what he needs be—in knowl- 
edge, in ability, in spirit, and in purpose his school will 
be what it ought to be in plan, in scope, in organization, 
and in methods of work. It will be all this before he is 
through with it, even if it isn’t all this when he takes 
hold of it—Dr. Trumbull. 


You can have a school without the Church better than 
you can have a Church without the school, because we 
shall part with the grave at less cost than the cradle. 
The responsibility of the pastor for the Sunday school 
isn’t optional; it is obligatory. Every department of 
work and worship has been committed to the minister; 
this amongst the rest. I think there is nothing more 
foolish in the minister than to quarrel with his ma- 
terials. The despondent tone is fatal to success. Make 


And Power in the Sunday School. 45 


the officers and teachers hopeful by your confident air.— 
Pattison, 


The pastor who knows books and not men, who under- 
stands inspiring truth but not human nature, is like 
a man in the desert throwing precious water at a collec- 
tion of bottles that are securely sealed. He may enjoy 
his own activity, but the bottles are as empty at the end 
of the performance as they were at the beginning. The 
Sunday school is simply an organization to extend the 
personal power of the pastor; its superintendent is his 
representative; its teachers are his assistants. Your 
first duty and mine is to understand and aid those who 
most need our aid—that is, the weakest and most help- 
less members of our flock. If we do not know how to do 
this, we must learn how. The pastor who doesn’t know 
the door that opens into a child’s heart and the path 
that leads into a child’s life is shut out of the most 
blessed opportunity of his ministry—Bishop Potter. 


One point strongly emphasized in these answers [to 
questions sent out] is the confessedly inadequate prep- 
aration of the clergy for this department of their work. 
It is quite impossible that we of the clergy might re- 
sent this if it were a criticism from the outside; but 
when it comes from within our own ranks, it cannot 
be idly dismissed. Granted the excellence of our the- 
ological training, and the presumably intelligent purpose 
of our theological schools, there can be no question 


46 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


that the clergy are not as thoroughly educated for their 
professional duties as the lawyer and physician for 
theirs. Their training is inadequate in scope, important 
lines of future work are wholly ignored, and some of 
the most crucial questions that await the young pastor 
are not foreseen and considered. Looking below the 
surface of the average pastoral life, nothing is more 
striking than the sense of utter helplessness which char- 
acterizes the relation of that pastorate to childhood and 
youth —Rev, Pascal Harrower. 


Some SEARCHING TRUTHS From Dr. Hatcuer’s Book, 
“THe PASTOR AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.” 


It ought to be a sleep-destroying experience for any 
preacher to find that his sermons do not interest chil- 
dren. . 

The Lord will work no wonders to make honest men 
believe blindly in pastors who have no energy, no prog- 
ress, no courage, and no power of initiative. 

But when once we can organize and stimulate the 
youthful forces of the Church there is life—fresh, ag- 
gressive, courageous life—and it will carry forward the 
Church in every holy direction and enterprise. With 
this spirit in the Church there will be no tempestuous 
revivals, no unhallowed devices for forcing results, and 
no overstraining methods for working up shallow suc- 
cesses. 

It is no pessimistic deliverance when I declare that 


And Power in the Sunday School. 47 


many of our ministers, valuable in other respects, are lost 
in their Sunday schools. They are aliens in their own 
houses; they are destitute of fitness for service; it is 
one of the most important phases in Christian evangeli- 
_ zation. This isn’t universally true; it may not be gen- 
erally true; but I am sure that the average pastor cuts 
an insignificant figure in the Sunday school, and that 
his withdrawal or death would prove a slight apprecia- 
ble loss to the school, 

A plea heard often, and by some with entirely too 
much sympathy, is that the participation in the exercises 
of the Sunday school makes too severe a draught upon 
the nervous vitality of the minister. As a fact, the 
strain is far greater upon the officer or teacher than it 
needs be on the minister. We know, too, that nervous 
vigor is just as necessary to effective listening as it is 
to effective speaking. The plea that would excuse the 
minister from the school would as effectually excuse 
the officer and teacher from the sermon. 

No apology is offered for beginning this course of 
lectures with the proposition that a minister who cannot 
thoroughly identify himself with his Sunday school 
ought not to be a pastor. Unfitness for service in this 
cardinal branch of Christian activity amounts to a dis- 
ability. To be useless in that department of Church 
work which has to do with the study of the Scriptures 
and with the salvation of the young is to offer an over- 
whelming argument against one’s worthiness of a pas- 


48 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


toral charge. If this statement is justified, then it must 
at once be a question of transcendent importance as to 
what a minister is to be and what he is to do in the 
Sunday school. 

Let not the pastor go like a scourged vassal to the 
Sunday school, going chiefly to silence criticism or 
merely because his absence may be used against him. 
If he be in such a mood as that, there will be one thing 
worse than his absence, and that will be his presence. 
It ought to be his very nature to be there. He ought 
to be borne to the holy place by a swell of holy solici- 
tude concerning those who are to study and teach the 
Word of God. He ought to go because he has not 
strength to stay away, because his soul is already there, 
and because his children will need him in studying the 
messages of love and salvation which have been brought 
to them from their Father. 

But, friends, think not my tongue evil. I would not 
speak ill of my fellow-pastors, that choice brotherhood 
of undershepherds; but I tell you out of my heart that 
I have not yet seen one of these men treading the white 
level of table-lands in the mountains of the Lord. They 
climbed well, passed many in their heroic climb, looked 
beautiful in the upper lights; but not one topped the 
mountain. Its heights are still untracked—no feet have 
“pressed it yet except those of the Shepherd and Bishop 
of our souls. I almost quiver with the masterful hope 
that if I could enter the lists again I would touch the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 49 


radiant crown of the mount of the faithful. But no; it 
is not for me. They give no second trials. But, young 
man, yonder is the mountain, yonder the winding track, 
yonder the climbers; go in, go in with flying feet and 
in the name of the Lord, and you may be the first to see 
the sun set from the mountain top. 


WHERE THE PAsToR SHOULD Expenp His ENeErcy. 


If a pastor will expend energy of instruction and in- 
spiration upon the teachers of his school, we can almost 
excuse him from other responsibilities in the institu- 
tion. He may make these officers of the school sub- 
pastors in the Church. He may train and, in so many 
Church ministries, employ them. In fact, his value to 
the school is to be measured by his work in behalf of 
and through his Sunday school teachers.—Bishop John 
‘H. Vincent, in “The Modern Sunday School.” 


Is Turs Your EXPERIENCE AS A SUNDAY SCHOOL 
PASTOR? 


As a pastor, I found myself pitifully inadequate to 
meet the requirements of Sunday school work. It had 
been my privilege but a few years ago to study in a 
representative theological seminary, where I covered 


” 66, 


the- full course of “catechetics,” “pastoral theology,” etc., 
yet the training of this representative institution did 


not “train” relative to the principles, problems, needs, 


4 


50 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


and growing demands of this foundation work of the 
Church, the Bible school. In parish work, therefore, I 
found myself in the growing years unequipped and face 
to face with the awful alternative that the Sunday school 
must be improved or suffer the loss—as the Church at 
large, for the most part, has suffered for years—of 
scores of youth—Rev. George Whitefield Mead, in 
“Modern Methods in Sunday School.” 


WHat THE Pastor Oucut To KNow ABOUT THE 
Sunpay SCHOOL. 


On every point in the Sunday school the pastor ought 
to be a master. So far as the school is a piece of ma- 
chinery, he ought to know every wheel, pulley, and 
band. So far as the school is a business body, he ought 
to know its outer and inner life, its organization, its 
methods, and its financial management. So far as the 
school is an institution, he cought to know its history, 
its strength, its purposes and equipment. So far as it 
is an association, he ought to know its members, its 
spirit, its resources, and its dangers. So far as it is a 
school, he ought to know its teaching force, its ever- 
recurring wants, and its sources of supply. In a word, 
the pastor ought to know more about the school than 
any one else or all others put together—Dr. William E. 
Hatcher, in “The Pastor and the Sunday School.” 


And Power in the Sunday School. 51 


Tue PAsToR AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


I do not wish to express a word of criticism about 
preachers; but if I should be called upon to state what 
I believe to be the one great, overpowering need of the 
Sunday school work, it would be that the preachers 
who have the Church work in their hands, who can 
mold the Church work to any plan that scems to them 
to be wise, should give the Sunday school as conspicuous 
and sympathetic a place in their lives and in their 
prayers and in their thoughts as they do the preaching 
service in which they themselves take the conspicuous 
part, and make themselves as conspicuous in the teach- 
ing agency as they have in the preaching service. I 
have the most unbounded faith in the results of the 
Sunday school work when it has back of it the sym-, 
pathetic, prayerful preacher —Coffin, 


Tue PaAstor’s PLACE IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


The pastor’s place is on the inside. Instead of de- 
claring that it is his imperative duty to be there, I feel 
constrained to say that it will be his pleasure and his 
habit to be there. His absence is out of all propriety, 
a blow at the school, a reflection upon biblical study, 
and a bad example for everybody. It is a waste of an 
opportunity, the cruel sacrifice of a privilege, and a 
signal proof that he does not know his own business. 
The presence of the pastor will be an unanswerable 


52 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


argument in favor of others coming. I count it not a 
small thing that the pastor’s appearance in the Sunday 
school shall be just exactly right. It must not be a 
race with him to get there; he must not come in a 
sweat or a fret. Let his face be as fresh as the light 
of a spring morning, glinted with spiritual joy, and so 
mellowed and beautified by love that all eyes shall 
kindle as they look upon him.—Dr. William E, Hatcher, 
in “The Pastor and the Sunday School.” 


THE Pastor’s REWARD AS LEADER OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL. 


The natural leader of the Sunday school is the pastor. 
Every great forward movement in the world’s progress 
has found its center and impulse in a human life in 
which some truth has become incarnate—dominant. The 
saved man is the completest commendation and vindi- 
cation of the Saviour of men. Such live the life, speak 
the language, do the work, share the experiences of 
their times with an unselfishness, joy, and power un- 
known to the world. They are samples of the “new 
man in Christ Jesus.” The motive, spirit, power, and 
reward attract by the sharpness of contrast with the 
world. It is an attraction unique, abiding, and power- 
ful. It lays hold of the innermost soul of the pastor, 
sending him to each new day and task with the growing 
assurance of personal redemption—a soul breaking forth 
into music: “I’ve been redeemed, been washed in the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 53 


blood of the Lamb.” This is the first condition of the 
pastor’s power. Without it all other gettings are com- 
paratively small. This brings to him a peace whose 
girdings are power; a hope which glorifies the face, 
enriches the language, and generates that humble king- 
liness born of abiding devotion to God and man.—Dr, 
S. H. Greene, in “The Twentieth Century Sunday 
School.” 


Tue Pastor’s WorK IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


The pastor is or should be the spiritual leader in 
every department of the work of his Church. I do not 
mean the executive officer of every department, but the 
moving, guiding, inspiring spirit in all. I do not think 
he should be the superintendent of the school or a 
teacher in the school, but its pastor. Indeed, that 
“evangelism” described as “preventive,” “paternal,” and 
“educative” describes the pastor’s sphere of work in 
his Sunday school. And he will make this work ef- 
ficient through his personal contact with the school as 
a whole, by classes, and as individuals. But his largest 
work will be done through multiplying himself in the 
ideals, the purposes, the standards of its teachers and 
officers. Let him do it as he will—only let him do it. 
As the commanding general influences the morals and 
efficiency of his soldiers through the influence upon his 
staff and military cabinet, as a great merchant prince 
reaches his business through his agents, so will a wise 


Pi Pe wt ats’ Ace ol ee 
“eS Sane ee 
> + 


54 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


pastor touch most vitally the life of his school through 
his officers and teachers. But he must do it—From an 
Address by the Rev. W. C. Merritt, Quoted by Dr. A. 
H. McKinney in “The Pastor and Teacher-Training.” 


A DEMAND For SuNpAY ScHoo. TRAINED PASTORS. 


As in mining, manufacturing, farming, and other like 
affairs, just so in Sunday school work: it is required 
of an overseer that he be an expert in the business. 
Every pastor ought to qualify himself for this work by 
careful study of its theory and close observation of its 
processes and results precisely as he does in the matter 
of pulpit discourse. But how few seem to think so! 
And how many fail of more abundant results in their 
ministry for this very reason! There is no use in dis- 
guising the fact that complaints, not loud but deep and 
widespread, are being brought by earnest Sunday school 
workers against pastors who do not think it worth 
while to prepare themselves for hearty, practical, co- 
operative efforts in this sphere. Sunday school pastors 
are needed—hbadly needed—and it is the immediate duty 
of every minister of the gospel to qualify himself for 
effective service in this relation. Hearty recognition 
and a warm welcome await every master workman in 
this delightful field. Here, oftener than elsewhere, he 
will be cheered by the harvest song of joy. That astute 
observer, Bishop McTveire, said recently, in addressing 
a conference of Methodist preachers: “I find the best 


And Power in the Sunday School. 55 


pastors on the best terms with the Sunday schools. I 
find a man very injurious to them who visits them once 
a year, and then, by his own influence to destroy peace 
and create a great deal of disquietude.” There was a 
broad hint for some brother.—Rev. J. A. Lyons, in “The 
_ Sunday School and Its Methods.” 


Dr. Potts oN TEACHER-TRAINING—THE PASTORS 
Must WAKE UP. 


That training is needed, all competent to judge must 
admit. That the Church must encourage training of 
teachers is a plain duty and a high responsibility. . 
For many reasons the pastor should train his own 
teachers. The pastor is responsible for the spiritual wel- 
fare of the children and young people. No helpers in 
the great work of saving the young people are so avail- 
able to the pastor as the Sunday school teachers. To 
* secure the best results along spiritual lines, the pastor 
and the Sunday school teachers must be in harmonious 
coéperation. . . . In the work of training the teach- 
ers a true pastor will come into such sympathetic touch 
that he and his teachers will so interblend in their in- 
fluence on the children and young people that they shall 
jointly have the joy of winning them for Christ and 
the Church. . . . One thing is certain—that pastors 
must wake up, or a cleavage may come between the 
Church and Sunday school which shall bode no good 
for the Church, and certainly not for the pastor. The 


56 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


most fruitful field to cultivate for Christ is the Sunday 
school, and no department of Church work should have 
more of the pastor’s attention than the Sunday school. 


In THE HaNps oF THE PASTORS. 


It is right and proper to hold the pastors responsible 
for much of the life and work of the Church. If they 
are to be credited with the successes, they must be 
debited with the failures. No one doubts that the 
Church is largely made or marred, so far as human 
agency goes, by the ministry. What is true of the 
Church in general is true of the Sunday school work 
in particular.” The Church that is blessed with a “Sun- 
day school pastor” is generally blessed with a Sunday 
school that is very much alive. The Church that has 
the misfortune to have a pastor who is indifferent to 
the claims of the Sunday school is usually on about 
three legs in this department of its work. Now and 
then a school flourishes in spite of the pastor’s ignorance 
or indifference. Then, to make a long story short, the 
point of all this is that the Sunday school work of the 
Church is in the hands of the pastor. We have a right 
to look to the pastors of our Church to lead in our 
Sunday school work. The men of all men who should 
have an expert knowledge of this work are the pastors. 
Does not the improvement of the Sunday school work 
of the Church begin in the improvement of the pastors 
of the Church?—Rev. John A. McKamy, 


And Power in the Sunday School. 57 


Tue PASTOR AND THE SCHOOL. 


But one thing is needful, and that is that the pastor 
should believe in the school. If he believes in it, he 
will think about it; and where his mind is, there will 
his heart be also. And where his heart is will be in- 
dicated, first of all, by the books on his shelves. And 
as reading makes thé full man, and as out of the abun- 
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh, he will refer not 
once or twice but many times in the pulpit and out of 
the pulpit to the work which the school is doing and 
to the workers who are laboring there, and thus the 
entire Church will be kept informed concerning the 
most important of all the departments of its work. His 
speech will betray him. A man radiates not what he 
has not but what he has, and no man can be enthusiastic 
over the study of the Bible without radiating the fire 
into the minds and hearts of those who come within the 
circle of his influence. A minister who does not see 
and feel the importance of the systematic study of the 
Scriptures by both young and old, both in the home and 
in the Church, is a minister who needs to be born 
again. Having eyes, he sees not; and, however learned, 
he is foolish, for upon the extent and depth of Bible 
study by his people depends the preparedness of the 
soil in which he sows his sermonic seed. What can a 
preacher do with a congregation of men and women 
ignorant of the Scriptures? What will such persons 


58 The Pastor's Place of Privilege. 


care for biblical preaching if they do not understand the 
allusions and the references, the illustrations and quota- 
tions, and if they are not sensitive to the overtones and 
undertones of prophet and apostle with which the best 
sermons are always filled? If the minister wishes to 
be a preacher of power, then let him in season and out 
of season carry on the work of persuading men to be- 
come students of the Word. In other words, let him 
believe with all his mind and heart and soul that the 
continuous study of the Bible by question and answer is 
of sovereign and enduring importance, and by his be- 
lief he will do more to assist the school than by any 
specific course of action which can be mentioned.—Rev. 
Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., in Pilgrim Teacher. 


CHAPTER V. 
Tue’ PAstor’s PREPARATION FOR LEADERSHIP. 


The testimony of pastors in the previous chap- 
ter seems to indicate that many pastors are not 
prepared for intelligent leadership in the Sunday 
school; and since inefficient leadership is worse 
than no leadership, it is incumbent on the pastor 
to prepare himseli for it before he undertakes it. 
For years it has been a tacitly admitted fact that 
the children are the hope of the Church, and a 
well-understood fact that the Sunday school is the 
greatest, if not the only, agency: of the Church 
for winning and holding them ; but notwithstand- 
ing this our theological seminaries have gone on 
from year to year turning out candidates for the 
ministry with no preparation for leadership in 
the modern Sunday school movement. The re- 
sult is that when a minister has taken up the 
work of a pastorate he has found himself wholly 
unfitted for intelligent work, much less leader- 
ship, in the Sunday school. 


(59) 


60 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


Now that the question is being pressed so 
closely on his attention, he is either shirking his 
duty, going at it blindly, or seeking to prepare 
himself for it. It need hardly assume the dignity 
of a prophecy to declare that only the latter 
course will prove the successful one. 

Happily this is soon to be a thing of the past, 
as some of our leading seminaries are establishing 
chairs of Sunday School Pedagogy and others 
are sure to do so at an early date. But in the 
meantime what of the pastors who have not re- 
ceived this training? There is but one course 
open to them if they are to keep abreast with the 
times, and that is to make special’ preparation for 
it. | There aré’severah means by which they can 
do this: 

1. The World of Books.——The pastor who 
is 4 /gnaduate ofa theological seminary has 
been ‘trained (in the use of books and the 
art of study. Naturally he will turn to the 
world of books on the subject; but, not being 
familiar with the numerous books on the vari- 
ous phases of the subject, no doubt he will ap- 
preciate suggestions. I think there is no doubt 


And Power in the Sunday School. 61 


that the first Sunday school book he should read 
is “The Pastor and the Sunday School,” by Dr. 
Hatcher. This will help him to crystallize his 
ideas and get a clear and accurate conception 
of his duty to- the Sunday school and his great 
opportunity in it. If he still has any linger- 
ing doubts as to his duty of preparation for lead- 
ership when he takes up this book, they will be 
sure to be removed by the time he is through 
with it. This is an inspiring book that will arouse 
in any pastor a desire to make his Sunday school 
a success. His next line of reading should evi- 
dently be along the line of history. H. Clay 
Trumbull’s “Yale Lectures on the Synday 
School” will give him clear and accurate infor- 
mation as to the origin and development of the 
Sunday school idea and the important part it 
has played in the development of the Church 
from the earliest times to the present. Perhaps 
his next book should be one on Sunday school 
management—one bringing into clear view the 
whole work of the Sunday school, with sug- 
gestions for accomplishing the work. For the 
pastor of a country or village school, the best 


62 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


books to begin with will be Axtell’s “The Or- 
ganized Sunday School” and Rice’s “A Manual 
of Sunday School Methods,” and perhaps a book 
by the author, now in press, “The Country and 
Village Sunday School.” For the city pastor 
the best will be Mead’s “Modern Methods in 
Sunday School Work” and Lawrance’s “How 
to Conduct a Sunday School.” Of course he 
will have to be familiar with the art of teach- 
ing if he is to lead his teachers into wider 
fields of usefulness. Trumbull’s “Teaching 
and Teachers” is a delightful and exhaustive 
book on this subject. He will find it necessary 
also to read a few books on child study. Du- 
Bois’ “The Point of Contact in Teaching,” Har- 
rison’s “A Study of Child Nature,” Koon’s “The 
Child’s Religious Life,’ and Forbush’s “The 
Boy Problem” will give him a pretty clear in- 
sight into this important subject. Two other 
books that will be found exceedingly helpful, as 
they give the essential principles of teaching 
based on a careful study of the child mind, are 
Gregory’s “Seven Laws of Teaching” and Brum- 
baugh’s “The Making of a Teacher.” Then sure- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 63 


ly he should read Hamill’s “Teacher-Training.” 
These books will give him a pretty thorough grasp 
of the subject and enable him to choose his own 
books for further investigation. 

2. The Training Class Everywhere training 
classes are being established for Sunday school 
workers. The pastor will find this one of the 
most helpful means of preparation. If he would 
organize a class and teach it, he would thus be 
enabled to train his workers and himself at the 
same time. By the time he and his class have 
-completed even an elementary course he will find 
that he has a pretty firm and comprehensive 
grasp of the subject. Then if he will take a 
class through an advanced course, stand the ex- 
aminations, and get an international diploma, he 
will be about as well equipped, no doubt, as the 
first few graduates of seminaries that have es- 
tablished chairs of Religious Pedagogy. To 
plead lack of time for a work like this is to beg 
the question, if not to shirk a plain duty. It will 
require time and labor; but if busy laymen are 
willing to undertake a work like this, surely the 
pastor ought to set an example and lead the way. 


64 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege 


3. Correspondence Courses—Many colleges 
and seminaries now have correspondence courses 
in Sunday school work and religious pedagogy, 
and no doubt they will greatly multiply in the 
near future. It needs no argument to prove that 
such a course, if properly conducted, will be the 
next best thing to taking a seminary course. No 
doubt many pastors, who live near enough, will 
take advantage of the opportunity offered where 
a chair of Sunday Schoo! Pedagogy has been es- 
tablished in a seminary. 

4. Visiting Other Sunday Schools—Al the 
above suggestions will familiarize one with the 
theory of Sunday school work, and theory must 
always precede practice, but to come in contact 
with a concrete working out of these theories will 
be an opportunity that any pastor should grasp 
with eagerness. A day in Mr. Wanamaker’s, Law- 
rance’s, or Pepper’s Sunday school, to one who 
is anxious to see a model Sunday school in ac- 
tual operation, will be a revelation and a delight 
beyond the power of words to portray. In near- 
ly every city and in many towns and villages, 
and even in country places, there are schools that 


And Power in the Sunday School. 65 


have made a marked success of one or more 
methods or phases of the work, and the pastor 
will get a fund of special information by visit- 
ing them that he can get in no other way. When 
he undertakes to introduce these things into his 
own school, he will find that to have seen a thing 
will be many times more convincing to his officers 
and teachers than merely to have read about it. 
If the pastor will visit successful schools when- 
ever and wherever the opportunity presents, and 
induce his officers and teachers to do the same 
thing, he will find it a constant source of improve- 
ment to himself and his workers, and therefore 
to his school. 

5. Conventions, Institutes, Summer Schools, 
Etc.—The next best thing to seeing a method in 
actual operation is to hear an explanation of it 
by one who has made a success of it. This op- 
portunity is presented at all such gatherings as 
we are now considering. It isa matter of history 
that almost without exception every Sunday 
school worker who has made more than a local 
reputation got his ‘first awakening to better 
things at a Sunday school convention and has 


5 


66 The Pastor's Place of Privilege. 


been a constant attendant at conventions there- 
after. It is here that one not only gets new ideas 
but gets his own ideas clarified, classified, and 
enlarged. There is no other opportunity for the 
pastor and his workers to improve themselves 
equal to a live convention, for the time, effort, 
and expense put into it. Since they are such a 
source of helpfulness, it stands to reason that he 
should not only attend them but help in every 
way possible to promote them. 

The pastor who will follow these suggestions 
and others which will come to him while he is 
following these will find, in a few years, not only 
that he is thoroughly prepared for intelligent 
leadership, but that there is a positive delight 
in it. 


CHAPTER VI. 
ELEMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP. 


I. The Selection and Disposition of Workers. 
—Nowhere does the ability of a leader show to 
greater advantage than in the selection and dis- 
position of his followers. To do this successfully 
he must be a good judge of human nature and 
know each of his appointees personally and in- 
timately. Every Church is full of fine, unde- 
veloped material, and happy is the pastor who 
is able to fit each person to his work. The work 
in nearly every Church is done by a few, and 
the reason the many lie idle is that no one has 
shown them what to do or how to do it. Every 
member of every Church ought to be a worker 
both for his own good and the good of the 
Church ; and it would be so if every pastor were 
an adept in the line of selecting workers, adapt- 
ing them to their work, and directing and en- 
couraging them in their work. 

Recently the papers reported that one of the 

(67) 


68 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


finest singers on the American stage was for- 
merly a street-car conductor, and a manager of 
a theatrical troupe discovered his fine voice by 
the musical tones in which he called out the 
streets. Why did not some pastor discover him 
and win him and his voice to the Lord? There 
are embryo musicians, artists, superintendents, 
teachers, secretaries, missionaries, personal work- 
ers, etc., in every Sunday school, and it should be 
the pastor’s chief concern to discover them and 
put them to work—each in his appointed sphere. 


There are some already at work who are making . 


a failure because they are in the wrong place. 
They do not know themselves what they can do 
best, and need guidance and counsel. There is 
no work the pastor can do for the Sunday school 
that will count for more than to find work for 
every member of the school and to put him to 
doing that to which he is best adapted. 

2. The Ability to Inspire-—Our Churches need 
inspiring leaders. There are scores of competent 
young people who need only to be organized, 
inspired, and set to work. One of the most im- 
portant elements of leadership is the ability to in- 


ib 


And Power in the Sunday School. 69 


spire others to do and dare. No one can do 
this who is not wrapped up in the cause he 
espouses. No half-hearted effort will ever enlist 
others. Let those who would lead learn that the 
first and indispensable requisite is love for the 
cause and an undying interest in its success. One 
may not be able to do a thing himself, and yet 
may be able to inspire others to do it. The 
pastor who has learned to touch the secret 
springs of action and set the whole machinery 
of a life agoing is far on the road to success as 
a leader. 

The pastor has it in his power to turn the 
tremendous streams of the vigorous young life 
of his Church into channels of usefulness. If 
the Lord should raise up some stirring Sunday 
school pastors who could point out as strongly 
to saints the duty of service as the ordinary pas- 
tor points out to sinners the need of salvation, 
there would not be such a dearth of Sunday 
school teachers. That any one should hope to get 
to heaven by simply being good without doing 
good is neither Calvinistic nor Arminian, so far 
as my information goes. 


70 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


Then we need another kind of Sunday school 
pastor: one who can show us not only the 
duty of service, but one who can show us 
the duty of preparation for service, so that we 
may not rush in where angels fear to tread. 
A soldier may enlist at the very first call 
to duty, but he is not expected to fight (ex- 
cept in an emergency) till he has been trained 
and disciplined. Should we expect any less of a 
good soldier of the cross? How can we expect 
the highest success when by all the canons of 
thought we neglect the very conditions of suc- 
cess? We need to be stirred and convicted on 
these points before we can be instructed. Hence 
the need of Sunday school pastors who have the 
ability to inspire. 

3. Ability to Enlist the Hearty Support of All 
His Workers.—The subtle power we call per- 
sonal influence has no finer opportunity to show 
itself than in the dealing of a superior officer 
with those under him. However great his au- 
thority (even though it extend to life or death), 
unless he is able to enlist the hearty support of 
his followers, no leader can achieve the highest 


And Power in the Sunday School. 71 


success. This is preéminently so in all Church 
work where all service is voluntary. The first 
concern of a pastor should be to unify his forces 
and cement them in a hearty support of all his 
plans. To do this, he must deal frankly and fair- 
ly with all, giving each due credit for all merito- 
rious service. He leads best who appears not to 
lead; therefore the pastor should be willing to 
be the power behind the throne, directing, urging, 
restraining with an unseen hand. His work 
should show itself in the increased zeal and effi- 
ciency of his officers and teachers. 

We are prone to underestimate the power of en- 
couragement. In fact, it is simply impossible for 
one to do his best without encouragement. The 
man whose father and mother, brothers and sis- 
ters, wife and children, friends and neighbors be- 
lieve in him and are always ready to find excuses 
for his failure and give applause for his success, 
cannot well fail in any undertaking. It is re- 
markable sometimes what good a little encourage- 
ment will accomplish. The war dance, the war 
song, and the war whoop of the savage, which 
take the form of oratory and martial music 


72 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


among civilized nations, are solely for the pur- 
pose of encouragement. Mr. Moody tells of a 
fireman who started up a ladder to a third-story 
window to rescue a little girl from a burning 
building. When he had gone halfway up, the 
heat became so intense that he faltered and 
seemed ready to give up. Just then some said, 
“Cheer him!” Immediately the air was rent 
with wild and enthusiastic cheering, and on he 
went till the child was rescued. A smile, a kind 
word, a warm hand grasp, a sweet-spoken “good 
morning” cheers many a fainting heart and turns 
imminent defeat into eminent success. Try it, 
pastors; not once or twice, but make a habit of it. 
It will be a benediction to yourself and a blessing 
to others. Most of our Sunday school officers 
and teachers feel the responsibility of their posi- 
tion, and a kindly word from a beloved pastor 
will cheer them on their way and put a song of 
joy into their hearts. At the same time he is 
so winning their love that they will be glad to 
follow him. The ability to enlist the hearty sup- 
port of one’s followers is so much of a personal 
matter that it is difficult to lay down any rules 


And Power in the Sunday School. 73 


governing it. Perhaps the best way for the 
pastor to do it is to lay out definite plans of 
work, lead his officers skillfully and sympathetic- 
ally into the doing of it, and thus show himsetf 
a leader worthy of their most hearty support. 

4. Courageous Thinking.—One of the greatest 
needs in our Sunday school to-day is courageous 
thinkers who will manfully grapple the problems 
of the Sunday school as they do the problems in 
their business. Many of our superintendents and 
teachers are men and women who fearlessly meet 
the difficulties of life, overcome them, and stand 
out before the world as successful men and 
women. Many of our pastors are strong and 
vigorous and successful leaders in other depart- 
ments of Church work; but when it comes to 
the Sunday school, these same men and women 
will sit down in despair because the parents are 
indifferent, because the pupils are not interested, 
because the young men are slipping away, and 
because of a score of other things; and at the 
same time they have never given an hour’s real 
thought and planning as to how these difficulties 
might be overcome. 


74 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


You need better teachers; how much thought 
and planning have you done to try to get 
them? What have you really done to solve 
this, the most important of all your prob- 
lems? You have lost hours of sleep planning 
other Church work; how much have you lost 
over your Sunday school? That sermon of 
yours—you have thought over it till your whole 
being throbs with the sense of its importance. 
How many such hours have you given to the 
Sunday school? You have spent hours and days 
of anxious thought over that new building, over 
your missionary collection, over your finances; 
how many such hours have you spent over the 
equipment and financial support of your Sunday 
school? You spend sleepless nights planning and 
praying for a successful revival, that sinners 
may be won from the error of their ways; how 
many stich nights have you spent planning to get 
the boys and girls who are running the streets 
into your Sunday school and to hold them there 
after you get them? Friends, in God’s name, 
don’t we need to wake up? I doubt if there 
is a single child in God’s universe, whatever his 


And Power in the Sunday School. 75 


heredity or environment, but can be won for 
Christ and a life of service for him if we will 
but begin in time, use our opportunities, and 
think and pray. The great open door of oppor- 
tunity for the Church is the childhood of the 
Church, and yet our best thoughts—in fact, near- 
ly all our thoughts—are given to other things. 
It should not be so, and it will not be so when 
once we pause to think. 

5. Effective Thinking.—The thinking man will 
not waste his time in the consideration of ephem- 
eral devices and methods, to the neglect of the 
consideration of principles that underlie methods. 
It may be laid down as a rule that a man worth 
while, attempting a thing worth while, will create 
his own methods, smash all the rules of his 
trade, if necessary, and succeed in the face 
of apparent impossibilities. In fact, the teaching 
of history is that men who have succeeded be- 
yond their fellows have done this very thing. 
In literature, in science, in art, in diplomacy, in 
war, the men who stand to-day as masters cre- 
ated methods of their own which were, in most 
cases, in direct opposition to established rules and 


76 - The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


methods. Every successful man is an iconoclast. 
Rules and methods are too often millstones 
around the neck of a man that cause him to 
sink because he hasn’t the courage to cast them 
off. Such a man is a “methodist” fallen from 
the high estate of grace—the grace of original- 
ity. Now methods are all right and “metho- 
dists’—that is, those who use methods—are 
all right; but when the method becomes the 
master of the man, then the “methodist” is all 
wrong, though the method may be all right. 

Weare just about to go method-mad in Sunday 
school work, and the flag of warning needs to be 
raised. The paramount question with many to- 
day is not so much What have you done? as How 
did you do it? The inspiration of a deed should 
be the fact of its doing, not the how of it. The 
fact that a thing has been done should lead one 
to say, “If he can do it, I can do it,” rather than 
put him to wondering, guessing, or inquiring 
how it was done. 

The man who thinks will first inform him- 
self of all that successful workers are doing, 
adapt or adopt their methods if they fit his 


And Power in the Sunday School. "7 


work; otherwise he will seek the principles un- 
derlying the methods and work out his own 
methods. The man who thinks knows that revo- 
lutions are not wrought in a day. He knows 
that things that are enduring are of slow growth; 
that there must always be a period of preparation 
for the introduction of a new movement or a new 
method; that before any advance can be made 
in any Sunday school new hopes and new aspira- 
tions must be created, new visions must open up 
new fields for effort, new resolves must be made, 
and a new atmosphere must be created; that you 
might as well expect good seed to grow in stony 
ground, or bread to bake in a cold oven, as to 
expect a new method to succeed in a school when 
all are indifferent, careless, and lifeless. The 
man who thinks is able to trace an effect back 
through intervening events to its original source 
and attack a difficulty at its fountain head. He 
is able to discover the relation of truths to each 
other and so combine them as to produce desired 
results. 

6. Keeping Tab on His Workers.—The leader 
in any cause must know what his subordinates 


78 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


are doing if he wishes to supervise their work 
intelligently. It is therefore essential that the 
pastor see to it not only that the Sunday school 
keep records, but that it keep them in such form 
that he or any one else in a little while can see 
the actual conditions of the school. Regular 
quarterly and annual reports should be made, 
tabulated, and filed. In this way only can he 
get the knowledge of the conditions of the school 
that will enable him to plan intelligently and wise- 
ly for its progress. Perhaps there should be 
regular weekly or quarterly reports that should 
be made directly to him, in addition to the re- 
ports made to the school. . 

As to what records a Sunday school should 
keep, how keep them, and how use them, it is 
so largely a matter of taste that it would be 
difficult to give suggestions, even of a general 
nature. All the publishing houses have forms 
that are helpful and suggestive. Many books 
on the Sunday school work discuss this sub- 
ject. Each Sunday school should have a good 
secretary who should look carefully after the 
Sunday school’s records and reports and see that 


And Power in the Sunday School. 79 


they are kept in such shape that he can furnish 
the pastor or the superintendent, on a moment's 
notice, any information they desire regarding 
the Sunday school. 

7. Visions and Ideals—Much stress is placed 
on the practical, and rightly so, but the man of 
practical ideas only is an imitator and a plodder. 
Of all men in the world, the pastor needs most 
to be practical; but if he is to be a leader in the 
highest, best sense of the word, he must be a 
man of visions and ideals also. The practical 
first exists as an ideal. “Ah!” says Robert 
Browning, “but a man’s reach should exceed his 
grasp, or what is heaven for?” “Better, im- 
measurably better, to live on the small are of an 
infinite circle than compass the whole area of a 
three-foot circumference. Better be the least in 
the kingdom of heaven, with an outlook as wide 
as eternity, than to be a king among men, with 
a horizon bounded by the cradle and grave.” 

Thoughts precede and determine action. No 
man is better than his best thoughts or greater 
than his highest ideals. Our progress is deter- 
mined by our outlook. The pastor who studies 


80 The Pastor's Place of Privilege. 


the Sunday school subject till his soul is astir will 
find visions rise before him of larger and better 
things because his increased knowledge gives 
him a broader outlook. The more he studies the 
Sunday school, and the more he works in it and 
for it, the broader will become his outlook, the 
greater will be his visions and ideals, till finally he 
will become a leader whom all delight to follow. 

8. A Few Others.—There are many elements 
of success so universal in their application that 
they apply with equal force to all lines of effort. 
Only a few will be mentioned: (1) Attention to 
Details. These may often be intrusted to sub- 
ordinates, but the chief should see that they are 
not neglected. (2) A Sense of Values. Not all 
things are of equal value in the working out of 
a general plan. Many mistakes are made by the 
paying of tithes of anise and cumin and neglect- 
ing the weightier things of the law. Here is 
where common sense and good judgment come 
into play. (3) Enthusiasm, earnestness, persist- 
ence, and such like of course are essential to 
the highest success in any work, and need only 
be mentioned. 


CHAPTER VII. 


AGENCIES THROUGH WHICH THE Pastor May 
EXERCISE His LEADERSHIP. 


The pastor, as a leader, will need to do very 
little of the actual work of the Sunday school. 
It is better for him and better for his workers 
that he should not. The ideal leader or super- 
visor is one who not only knows the work of 
every one of his subordinates, but who can do 
it better than the subordinate himself. How- 
ever, this is not absolutely essential, and the pas- 
tor will do well to use every agency at his com- 
mand to advance the work of the Sunday school, 
and through these and into these put his best 
efforts in behalf of the Sunday school. 

1. His Official Board.—The officers of the 
Church who manage its business and direct its 
work are the ones who should have a care for 
the best interests of the Sunday school, but alas! 
alack! they are frequently the ones who know 

6 (81) 


82 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


the least about it and consequently have thé least 
interest in it. Surely the pastor has an oppor- 
tunity here that he should eagerly grasp. In the 
first place, he should not rest satisfied till every 
one of his officials, with every member of his 
family, is an active member of the Sunday school, 
either in actual attendance or enrolled in the 
Home Department or the Cradle Roll. If they 
haven’t enough interest to belong, they haven’t 
enough interest (to say nothing of their wis- 
dom) to direct. 

The superintendent should evidently be a 
member of the official board, and should make 
a regular report to the board of the condition, 
progress, and needs of the Sunday school, 
and the pastor should see that he does it. 
Then the board should carefully consider the 
needs of the school and withhold nothing es- 
sential to its best interests. The equipment of 
most schools is wholly inadequate to the best 
work. They are poorly seated, lighted, and 
heated. Surely it was the suggestion of the 
prince of darkness himself that formerly led 
many Churches to put their Sunday schools in 


And Power in the Sunday School. 83 


dark, damp, forbidding basements. It is a 
debasement of the Sunday school to put it in 
the basement of the church; even flowers will 
not grow there, much less children. 

Not all of our city schools, and very few of 
those in the country, have even so much as a 
blackboard. Many of them are poorly supplied 
with the necessary literature, song books, and 
record books. They have no libraries for either 
the pupils or the teachers. They have none 
of the splendid equipment in the way of maps, 
charts, models, printed forms, report blanks, 
certificates and diplomas, and rewards that are 
now considered absolutely essential to the best 
work in the Sunday school. 

The school is not even permitted to use its own 
funds for these purposes, but it is drained by ap- 
peal after appeal for the financial interests of 
the Church. Perhaps it is best that the contri- 
butions of the Sunday school should go to some 
benevolence of the Church, but surely the Church 
should furnish a liberal support to the school in 
return for, and in appreciation of, its unselfish 
work, The pastor holds the key to the situation, 


84 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


and if he appreciates his opportunity will not rest 
satisfied until every one of his officials is in- 
tensely interested in the Sunday school and will- 
ing to do anything that he and his officers and 
teachers ask, even if they “cannot afford it.” 
There are some things we can afford to have 
because we cannot afford to do without them. 
That Church that is spending $3,000 on its paid 
choir and $300 on its Sunday school may find it 
can afford to do without some things that it may 
afford to have some other things. 

2. The Officers and Teachers of the Sunday 
School.—These are his under officials and his 
assistants in the work. As a rule what the pas- 
tor wants to put into the Sunday school he should 
put in through the superintendent, and what 
the superintendent puts into it should be through 
his teachers. Rarely, if ever, should’ a pastor 
undertake to introduce anything into the Sun- 
day school except in this way. He will thus 
honor and dignify their work and show his ap- 
preciation of it. He will also avoid friction and 
perhaps open opposition and rebellion in this 
way. There is no sadder nor more demoraliz- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 85 


ing scene than an irritating disagreement of 
pastor and superintendent, or superintendent and 
teachers, before the school, and no tactful pastor 
will ever permit it, much less precipitate it. If 
there must be a disagreement, let it be in private 
or at the business session of the teachers’ meet- 
ing. But while there will often be different 
opinions held by the pastor and his co-workers, 
if he is tactful and courteous there need never 
be an unpleasant disagreement, much less open 
rupture. This will never happen if the pas- 
tor will remember that he is a leader and not a 
driver. Even if he had the power to run it over 
his officers and teachers and force them to adopt 
some of his pet schemes, he hasn’t the power to 
compel them to undertake it with the heartiness 
that is necessary to make it a success. It were 
better for him to patiently wait than to sow his 
seed in thorny or stony ground. 

3. His Public Services—Nowhere has the pas- 
tor a greater opportunity to show his apprecia- 
tion of the Sunday school, and thus win the 
hearty and loyal support of his officers and 
teachers, than in his public services. In his 


86 The Pasior’s Place of Privilege 


public announcements he can frequently refer 
to the Sunday school and speak of the splendid 
work it is doing. In his sermons, whenever the 
subject of religious instruction, Bible study, or 
the rearing of children comes up, he can put in a 
plea for the Sunday school. In his public prayer 
he can thank God for the Sunday school and the 
noble band of workers who are so unselfishly 
giving their lives at a great personal sacrifice to 
the religious instruction of the children in the 
Sunday school. 

If he really has the interest of the Sunday 
school at heart, and will occasionally in his 
public prayer before the whole congregation 
take his Sunday school and its workers to 
the throne of God and earnestly and tenderly 
plead for a blessing, he will find that when he 
comes to request new or additional work of his 
officers and teachers they will hear and follow 
him gladly. The whole secret of pastoral lead- 
ership in the Sunday school may be summed 
up in the two words “interest” and “compe- 
tency.” If he has a downright, heartfelt interest 
in the Sunday school that shows itself on every 


And Power in the Sunday School. 87 


proper occasion and in every conceivable way, 
and is competent to lead his school into better 
things, he need have little fear of opposition from 
his officers and teachers. His public utterances 
will do much to show whether or not he has 
these two desirable and indispensable qualities, 
4. The Teachers’ Meeting.—It is here that his 
greatest opportunity lies for inspiring, instruct- 
ing, and guiding his officers and teachers, How 
any pastor can afford to neglect an opportunity 
like this is marvelous. If his Sunday school 
has none, he should not rest satisfied till one is 
organized, whether his Church be in the city, 
the village, or the country. The one and only 
reason why most teachers’ meetings fail is lack. 
of competent leadership; and until the pastor 
feels that he is competent to lead it, or secure 
some one else who is, he would better not under- 
take it. But how can we conceive of a pastor 
who is not competent or willing to make himself 
competent for a work like this? If he under- 
takes it before he is competent, he is almost sure 
to fail. If he undertakes to preach a sermonette 
on the lesson, moralize about it, or teach it, in 


88 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


a verse-about-what-do-you-think-of-that fashion, 
he is sure to kill it. He must be so familiar with 
the lesson that he can analyze it, amplify it, unify 
it, “splainify” it, classify it, glorify it—make the 
very shekinah of heaven shine forth in its teach- 
ings. If the pastor, by his example, his words, 
and his deeds, will lay upon the hearts of his 
officers and teachers their duty, their responsi- 
bility, their opportunity, and their privilege in 
the Sunday school work, and thus create in them 
a desire for effective service, he will find that 
they will eagerly grasp every opportunity for 
improvement. Then if he will start a teachers’ 
meeting and make it a service of real helpfulness 
to his teachers, he will find no trouble in securing 
their attendance. 

A pastor recently took charge of a large, 
wealthy, and influential Church in the Blue- 
grass section of Kentucky, where other things 
than the grass are blue to the earnest pas- 
tor. He found the Sunday school practically 
nil, He greatly desired to improve it. He called 
his officers and teachers together for a confer- 
ence. He found them utterly indifferent. When 


And Power in the Sunday School. 89 


he proposed a teachers’ meeting, they laughed de- 
risively and said: “Why, Brother A, you can’t 
have a teachers’ meeting in the B Church in P. 
It has been tried and has failed so often that it 
has become chestnutty.” But Brother A made 
up his mind then and there that the teachers of 
the B Sunday school in P needed a teachers’ 
meeting above everything else, and that he must 
* have it—and he got it. This is the way he did 
it: He let no opportunity pass to show his own 
idea of the importance of the Sunday school and 
his unflagging zeal and interest in it. As op- 
portunity presented he pressed upon the teachers 
the importance of the careful preparation of each 
lesson in so important and glorious a work as 
teaching God’s Word to the children. When the 
time was ripe, one Wednesday evening at the 
close of prayer meeting, after a warm and ten- 
der talk on the privilege of service, he said: “I 
see five of my Sunday school teachers here to- 
night. I have a message for them, and I am 
going to ask them to meet me in my study for 
just ten minutes.”” When alone, he said: “Teach- 
ers, we have a very important lesson for next 


go The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


Sunday, and in studying it I have jotted down 
a few thoughts that I think will be helpful to 
you.” So in a bright, interesting, and helpful 
way he went over the lesson, closing with a tell- 
ing illustration on the central truth of the lesson. 
Exactly at the close of the ten minutes he closed 
with an earnest prayer, and he and his teachers 
went home, each with a new light and a new 
hope, perhaps a new desire. The next Wednes- - 
day night, like Abou Ben Adhem’s angel, they 
came again and brought three others with them. 
But Brother A closed the prayer meeting with- 
out a word about an after meeting with his teach- 
ers. They immediately rushed up to him and 
said: “Brother A, aren’t you going to have that 
teachers’ meeting to-night?” “What teachers’ 
meeting?” he asked in apparent surprise. 
“Why, didn’t you organize a teachers’ meeting 
last Wednesday night? We so understood it, 
and we found it so exceedingly helpful that we 
are all here and have brought three others,” 
they said. “I am sorry to disappoint you, my 
dear teachers,” was his reply, “but you positively 
assured me sometime ago that it was impossible 


And Power in the Sunday School. gt 


to have a teachers’ meeting here; and while I 
have been able to accomplish some difficult 
things, I have never yet been able to accomplish 
impossibilities.” “We are so sorry,” they cried. 
“We got so much help from the short talk you 
gave us last week that we hoped you would con- 
tinue it. Can’t you arrange to give us a talk 
like that every Wednesday evening?’ “Why, 
certainly,” he said. “Nothing will delight me 
more if you will all be here.” They promised 
and were all there, and that is the way Brother 
A got his teachers’ meeting in the B Sunday 
school in P, in the midst of the bluest Bluegrass 
region in Kentucky. This is a true story in every 
detail. Him that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear. If the pastor finds it impossible for a while 
to have a weekly teachers’ meeting, he should at 
least have a monthly business meeting for the 
transaction of the business of the Sunday school 
and the consideration of its needs and interests. 
And it may be that he can throw so much life and 
interest into this monthly meeting as to develop 
it into a regular teachers’ meeting. 

. §. The Training Class——Nowhere is there a 


92 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


greater opportunity for the pastor to put the best 
that is in him into his Sunday school in a per- 
manent form than the training class of pros- 
pective officers and teachers for the Sunday 
school. If his present corps of workers did not 
receive training before entering upon their work, 
then they should be organized into a training 
class to meet sometime during the week. It is 
a good idea to combine this class with the teach- 
ers’ meeting if an afternoon or evening can be 
given exclusively to it. But the most effective 
and permanent work will be with prospective 
workers who recite at the Sunday school hour, 
laying aside for the time being the regular les- 
sons. There are several advantages in this. (1) 
He will have no trouble in finding a time for it, 
which is one of the most difficult problems con- 
nected with the training of workers already in 
the service. (2) Taking them before they be- 
gin to teach, they have not fallen into many er- 
rots which they will have to unlearn and they 
have not gotten into ruts out of which they will 
have to be taken. This is a decided gain that can 
be fully appreciated only by those who have 


And Power in the Sunday School. 93 


had experience in trying to teach such persons. 
(3) He will have them at that teachable age 
when they can learn readily and retain perma- 
nently what they learn. 

The teacher who has had experience will find, 
when he learns a better way and _ honestly 
strives to use it, that his old experiences are 
constantly insinuating themselves into his work, 
coloring his ideas, and upsetting his plans. 
The teacher who has been taught how to 
teach before he begins to teach will start 
right and go right, with none of these hin- 
dering causes, because he knows no other way. 
He will be trained in advance to know just 
what difficulties he is likely to meet and how to 
overcome them, or, better still, how to forestall 
them. He will thus be spared humiliating de- 
feat and paralyzing discouragement, both of 
which always weaken a person’s power of use- 
fulness. Surely this is an opportunity that the 
pastor will not neglect. 

He should teach this class himself until he has 
found or trained some one to do it for him, and 
he should make it a permanent class in his school. 


94 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


There is no one thing or dozen things that will 
so surely solve all the problems of the Sunday 
school as training each worker for his. duties 
before he is put to work. The pastor can do no 
greater service for his school than to organize 
and maintain such a class. Into its members 
he can put every idea of progress with the as- 
surance that it will help generations yet unborn. 

Such proportions has this subject assumed that 
there is an International Educational Commit- 
tee planning and supervising the work of 
Training Classes, and the International Sunday 
School Association that created this commit- 
tee also has an International Training Secre- 
tary in the field. Several training courses have 
been passed upon by this committee and recom- 
mended as meeting the standard set up by them. 
When any one of these courses is completed and 
a satisfactory examination passed, an Interna- 
tional Certificate or Diploma is awarded. Of 
course the pastor will want to become acquainted 
with all these courses, and especially the official 
course of his own denomination. The Interna- 
tional Sunday School Association, through its 


oe 


And Power in the Sunday School. 95 


Training Secretary, has gotten out a leaflet on 
this subject that every pastor will want to read. 
6. The Home Department and the Cradle Roll. 
—These are agencies by means of which the 
pastor through his Sunday school can reach the 
home. The visitors of these two great depart- 
ments of Sunday school work are so many sub- 
pastors to aid the pastor in his work. The Boys’ 
Messenger Service, in connection with the Home 
Department, will not only prove a help to him 
but will prove the salvation of many boys. These 
are two agencies that are intended to encourage 
home training, home Bible study, and home re- 
ligion, and at the same time connect the home and 
the Church in a vital and enduring relation. 
Surely the wide-awake, up-to-date pastor will 
need no argument to convince him of the im- 
portance of a work like this. Pages might easily 
be written and pages of testimonials given show- 
ing the results of this blessed work. If by chance 
any pastor is not sufficiently familiar with the 
details of the Home Department to organize and 
maintain it successfully, he can find all he wants 
to know in a bright, breezy little pamphlet on the 


96 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


subject by Mr. C. D. Meigs, “The Home Depart- - 
ment Blue Book.” Price, five cents; value, five 
dollars. “The Home Department of To-Day,” 
by Mrs. Stebbins, is an inspiring book just from 
the press. 

7. The Sunday School Session—The Sunday 
school session furnishes the pastor his only op- 
portunity to observe and test the work he is do- 
ing through his officers and teachers. He should 
carefully observe the work of the superintendent 
and other officers, commend anything he finds 
worthy of it, and encourage officers, teachers, 
and pupils by his cheery presence and words of 
appreciation. During the teaching of the lesson 
he should observe the manner of his teachers, 
the order, attention, and interest of the pupils, 
and the general air that pervades the room. He 
should pass from class to class in a quiet, unob- 
trusive way and listen to its work. This, at first, 
may disturb both the teacher and the pupils, 
but they will soon become accustomed to it and 
will welcome his coming. Sometime during the 
year he should teach, at least once, every class 
in the school, sometimes in the absence, some- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 94 


times in the presence of the teacher. Whatever 
of merit or of demerit he discovers in this way 
in the management or the teaching of the school 
should be used by him in the teachers’ meeting 
and in private conversation to encourage his 
workers in the good and cause them to abandon 
the bad. The superintendent should set apart a 
few minutes to be used by the pastor each Sun- 
day as he sees fit, but he may frequently find 
that the best way to use it will be to give it to 
some one else. Here is a good rule for the pas- 
tor or superintendent, or any one else who talks 
to a Sunday school: Be sure you have something 
to say, know how to say it, and stop when you 
have said it. 

8. Plans of Systematic Visitation.—With the 
exception of the Home Department, all the other 
agencies mentioned refer more especially to the 
improvement of the Sunday school. The wide- 
awake pastor will want not only the best Sunday 
school possible, but the largest Sunday school 
possible as well. The fact that it is a good school 
will attract many to it, but not a tithe of those 
who might come. Many devices may be hit upon 

7 


98 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


to build up the Sunday school, but the only one 
of permanent value is a systematic plan of visi- 
tation to hold those already enrolled and to con- 
tinually enroll others. Nothing can take the 
place of a personal visit to reclaim an old pupil 
or secure a new one. Of course the teacher 
should be the first one to look after an absent 
pupil; but often teachers are careless or lacking 
in tact and persistence in this matter, and their 
efforts should be supplemented by carefully 
planned committee work, so thorough in its 
plans that no one can escape its meshes. Many 
schools have been known to double and even 
quadruple their enrollment and attendance by a 
campaign somewhat as follows: 


A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN TO DOUBLE, TRIPLE, OR 
QuADRUPLE YOUR SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


The following plan of campaign has been suf- 
ficiently tested to warrant the claim mentioned in 
the caption. It consists of three steps, each of 
which must be fully understood and carefully 
thought out and planned before anything else is 
attempted. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 99 


1. A House-to-House Canvass, in Which All 
Sunday Schools Unite-——The purpose of this 
first visitation is only to secure information; and 
yet, if properly done, it may greatly increase 
the attendance of the Sunday schools partici- 
pating ; besides, it will arouse unprecedented in- 
terest among all classes in the territory can- 
vassed. Briefly the plan is as follows: Let a 
committee be appointed from all the Sunday 
schools in the territory to be canvassed. This 
committee should divide the territory into dis- 
tricts of such size that each can be visited in a 
day, or better in a half day by two visitors going 
together. Next the committee should ask for the 
appointment of a sufficient number of visitors 
by the Sunday schools to visit the whole territory 
in one day, going two and two, the two being 
of different denominations. 

Before the day of visitation see that the can- 
vass is thoroughly advertised and explained 
through the local papers and at all Church serv- 
ices, and that the homes in the territory to be 
visited are requested to receive the visitors 
kindly and answer the questions courteously. 


1 ee ee 
rs OE a 


100 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


See also that the visitors are thoroughly in- 
structed in their duties before starting. The 
visitors take with them a card containing ques- 
tions which will secure just such information 
as is needed by the Sunday schools to do intelli- 
gent and effective work. 

After the canvass the cards are to be assorted, 
and all belonging to each denomination, or hav- 
ing a preference for it, are to be given to that 
particular denomination; also a list of those 
having no preference. If the other Sunday 
schools cannot be induced to unite in such 
a canvass, then each must do it alone; but 
it can be done more quickly, more cheaply, and 
more effectively by all uniting in this first general 
canvass. Experience has shown that in this 
work, unless the pastors take a leading part, 
failure is almost sure to follow. 

2. Start a Home Department and Cradle Roll. 
—This will give you a plan by which you can as- 
sociate every member of every family of your 
Church with the Sunday school. The Home 
Department requires a superintendent and a suf- 
ficient number of visitors to visit the homes of 


And Power in the Sunday School. 101 


the members once a quarter. The required 
literature consists of a quarterly for each mem- 
ber and the necessary supplies for keeping the 
records. Each member of the department agrees 
to study the current Sunday school lessons at 
least a half hour each week and make a quarterly 
report to the visitor. The “Home Department 
Blue Book,” by C. D. Meigs, tells all about 
the Home Department—its origin, purpose, and 
plans; how to organize and run it successfully ; 
what literature and what officers are needed, and 
what their duties are. In short, it contains every- 
thing one needs to know to make a complete 
success of the Home Department; and it is told 
in such a bright, breezy, and inspiring way that 
it will interest you and help you to be made will- 
ing to want a Home Department and want it bad. 

The Cradle Roll is merely a roll of the children 
too young to attend Sunday school, and is usually 
looked after by the superintendent or teacher of 
the Primary Department. It is very easily and 
simply managed. An application card, a birth- 
day card, an enrollment card, and a roll of some 
kind are the only literature needed. The little 


102 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


ones on the roll should be remembered in the 
prayer and visited on their birthday and when 
sick. The mothers should be invited to visit 
the school with their babes, either on some special 
day, known as Cradle Roll Day, or at such time 
as suits their convenience. In this way, and in 
other ways that will suggest themselves, the 
hearts of the mothers may be so bound to the 
school that the little ones will be sure to enter 
_as soon as they are old enough. You can get the 
necessary literature for the Home Department 
and the Cradle Roll from your own denomina- 
tional publishing house or from your State Sec- 
retary, and I might add here that anything men- 
tioned in these pages may be secured in the same 
way. 

3. Adopt the Plans of a Red and Blue Contest 
and Revisit All Whose Names Were Secured on 
the First Canvass.—This is a plan that must be 
carefully guarded, but marvelous results have fol- 
lowed wherever it has been tried. Choose for 
captains cool-headed and staid men and women 
rather than older boys and girls, and let the 
captains see that everything is done with the ut- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 103 


most fairness. Let it be understood that if any 
differences should arise they are to be referred 
to the pastor and the superintendent, whose de- 
cision is final and must be accepted cheerfully. 
See that the pupils use no unworthy motives in 
soliciting new members and that they do not 
proselyte. Avoid the boom idea as much as pos- 
sible. Use every possible means to make your 
school attractive, so as to be able to hold those 
you get. Let the contest extend over a period 
of at least three months. Let the total attendance 
for the period, rather than the number of pupils 
secured, decide the contest. See for at least one 
year that absentees are followed up with a per- 
sistency that knows no such thing as fail, and you 
will find this one of the finest methods to build 
up your school ever devised. 

The following rules, recently adopted by one 
of the schools of Louisville, cover the subject 
pretty well: 


RULES FOR GUIDANCE OF WORKERS. 


1. The school shall be divided into two sections, each 
headed by a captain. 

2. Captains shall be nominated by the superintendent 
and approved by the school. 


104 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


3. The captains shall choose alternately members for 
their respective sides, and each side shall be designated 
by a color. 

4. The prime object shall be to secure pupils whose 
residence and other conditions indicate that they may 
become regular members of the school. 

5. Persons brought in shall be expected to attend the 
school for at least four Sundays. 

6. As the school is divided into three departments, 
Cradle, Home, and Main Body, individuals shall be 
solicited for all departments, and a person added to any 
department shall be credited to the side securing him. 

7. Persons attending other Sunday schools should not 
be solicited. 

8. Scholars who formerly attended our school, but 
have been absent for six months or longer, shall be re- 
garded as new members. 

g. Individuals brought in shall first be presented to 
the captain of the members securing them, and the cap- 
tain shall turn them over to the superintendent, who 
shall assign them to classes. 

10. This contest shall begin October 1 and continue 
for three months, being terminated with a reception to 
new scholars, to be participated in by all members of 
the school. 


The obverse side contained blank spaces for 
names and addresses of new pupils secured, also 
a statement of what department they were to 
join, and whether secured by a red or a blue. 

4. Now divide your territory into districts of 


And Power in the Sunday School. 105 


convenient size, put a permanent outlook com- 
mittee with a vigilant chairman over each new 
district, and hold them responsible for the enroll- 
ment of every available scholar in their district. 
This will give permanency to your plan. 

5. Do everything in your power to hold a pupil 
when you once get him. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE PAstoR AND His SUPERINTENDENT. 


The superintendent is the pastor’s chief assist- 
ant. Whatever the form of Church government, 
the pastor should have the privilege of nominating 
the superintendent. 

1. Their Relation to and Treatment of Each 
Other.—Many comparisons have been used to 
illustrate the relation of the pastor to his super- 
intendent. Perhaps the best is this: The pastor 
is the commander in chief of all the Church 
forces, and therefore of those engaged in the 
Sunday school work, and the superintendent is his 
chief lieutenant. The pastor is therefore respon- 
sible to the Church for the work of the superin- 
tendent, who in turn is responsible to the pastor. 
Since they are, therefore, both responsible for the 
success of the Sunday school, they should have a 
large voice in the selection of the other officers 
and teachers. The pastor should select his super- 

(106) 


The Pastor in the Sunday School. 107 


intendent with great care, and then give him as 
free a hand as is consistent with efficient super- 
vision. As the pastor nominates or appoints the 
superintendent, he should, therefore, have a per- 
sonal interest in his success and should encour- 
age him in every way possible. They should 
be the closest of friends, and each should feel 
free to approach the other at any time and in 
the frankest way express themselves one to the 
other. 

The question of “who is who” should never 
arise, and there should never be a suspicion that 
one is attempting to usurp or trample upon the 
rights of the other. Whenever one begins to 
stand up for his own rights, he is sure to trample 
upon the rights of the other. Let each stand up 
for the other’s rights rather than his own. Nei- 
ther should ever say or do anything that will re- 
flect on the other, especially in the presence of 
any member of the school. If there is a difference 
of opinion, let each, in so far as he can, defer to 
the wishes of the other. Let them never under 
any circumstances, either alone or in the pres- 
ence of the teachers, get into an argument. An 


108 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


argument is nothing but a war of words; and 
although one may silence the other’s guns, and 
even carry his point, he has not carried his antago- 
nist, which is far more important than to carry 
his point. There should always be the freest 
expression of opinion; and if their opinions do 
not agree, let it stop at that for the time being, 
each acknowledging that the other may be right. 
If either should thoughtlessly, or in a moment 
of irritation, say anything discourteous to the 
other, let him apologize at once. Let them have 
an understanding with each other that whenever 
a misunderstanding or a serious disagreement 
arises there is to be a prayer meeting of “they” 
two and no more. If they will deal thus frankly, 
openly, and considerately with each other, there 
need be nothing but the warmest of friendship 
existing between them. 

2. Selecting a Superintendent.—There is no 
duty devolving upon the pastor that he should 
approach with more careful thought and prayer- 
ful spirit than that of selecting the superintend- 
ent of his Sunday school. There are many ° 
things that characterize a good superintendent, but 


And Power in the Sunday School. tog 


many times it may be best to cast them all to the 
winds and hunt for a man—a true-hearted, man- 
ly man, who loves everybody and whom every- 
body can love—a man who will appreciate his op- 
portunity and strive to make the most of it; a 
man who is willing to learn, is companionable 
and lovable and willing to give the necessary 
time to the work to make it a success. Such a 
man may be soon developed into a superintend- 
ent that will far surpass in efficiency his brilliant 
or influential brother with all the ready-made 
qualifications at hand. A man who is too well 
qualified before he begins may depend upon his 
qualifications rather than upon his work. Above 
all, do not choose a man simply because he is 
good or influential or wealthy or a pillar of the 
Church. He may become the pillow, if not the 
shroud, of your Sunday school. It takes a live 
man to have a live Sunday school; and if he does 
not make a live Sunday school, he will not have 
many live boys and girls in it. There is no use 
to put a dead saint after live sinners. Do not 
allow anything to enter into your considerations 
when you come to select a superintendent except 


Vacekst 5) 


110 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


the good of the school and the glory of God. Is 
that a superfluous remark? 

3. Developing a Superintendent.—As sug- 
gested above, if you select a too eminently qual- 
ified man for superintendent, there may be no 
room for development—that is, in his own esti- 
mation; and you know that it is a law of growth 
that when development ceases decay soon begins 
to set in. Now if a man is eminently qualified 
because of previous service, there need be no 
apprehension along this line; but if he is just 
naturally well qualified, have a care. There is 
certainly no more delightful experience for a 
pastor than to see strong, stalwart men growing 
up around him into active, efficient Church work- 
ers. When you have gotten the right man, then 
strive in every possible way to develop him. 
Remember that growth and development come by 
self-exercise, so do not do his work or his think- 
ing or his praying for him. See that he does 
it himself. Pray for him, speak words of encour- 
agement and appreciation to him and about him. 
Let him know and let the school know that you 
appreciate him. Whenever in your reading you 


And Power in the Sunday School. 111 


come across an article or a book that will help 
him, give it to him and ask him to read it. 
Send him to Sunday school conventions and see 
that his way is paid. Whatever I am in the Sun- 
day school work I owe to a beloved pastor of 
mine, Rev. E. B. Ramsey (God bless him!), who, 
when I was a careless, indifferent superintend- 
ent, had interest enough in me and in his Sunday 
school, of which I was superintendent, to raise 
funds and send me to an International Sunday 
School Convention. There I got a vision of the 
work that filled my soul with joy, and which 
has grown broader and brighter and more glo- 
rious as the days go by. I shall never cease 
to be grateful for that privilege for which alone 
my pastor was responsible. 

There is much said about being so true a 
friend as to tell another of his faults, but I 
find very few friends like that. I think there 
is another and a better way. Instead of telling 
your superintendent of his faults, tell him of 
his virtues; and when you see a weakness in 
_ his work, show him a better way and lead him 
kindly, lovingly, and tactfully therein. There 


a _— 5 
a 


112 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


are not many of us who like to be told of 
our faults, even by a friend, and there are not 
many friends who like to do it or can do it in 
such a way as not to leave a scar. We often in 
this way plant the seeds of discouragement and 
chill the heart’s warm glow. But most of us 
are willing to be led by the loving hand of a 
trusted friend, and remember that the pastor 
is a leader and not the foreman of an alteration 
department. There are many ways that will sug- 
gest themselves to the tactful pastor by which 
he can develop his workers, and I know of no 
more telling way than this. There is no other 
way by which we can so surely and effectually 
perpetuate the good that is in us comparable to 
that of putting it into the lives of those about 
us. “It is better to make a life than a living;” 
and blessed is that pastor who raises up around 
him a corps of helpful, willing workers who look 
to him for guidance and love him as a trusted 
friend. 

4. Sizing Up a Superintendent.—The pastor 
is the supervisor of the Sunday school, as he is 
of all the work of the Church. He will need to 


And Power in the Sunday School. 113 


watch carefully the work of his superintendent 
to see wherein he is strong and wherein he is 
weak. The efficiency of a superintendent can 
better be determined by what he does just be- 
fore the opening of the school and just after the 
close than by what he does on the platform. If 
there is nothing doing at those times, you can gen- 
erally put it down that there is not much doing 
at any other time, although there may appear to 
be if you pay attention only to the superintend- 
ent. Another good time to “size up” the super- 
intendent is during the recitation period. If he 
doesn’t realize his opportunity here, he is not 
likely to do it elsewhere. Most superintendents 
try to make the best show in the opening and 
closing exercises, and ‘especially if there is a 
visitor around whom they desire to impress fa- 
vorably. But if the pastor knows how to take 
the measure of a superintendent, he knows that 
there is no better time for it than the three pe- 
riods mentioned above—just before the opening, 
just after the close and during the recitation. 

To size up a superintendent, watch the expres- 


sion on his face when you approach him, ob- 
§ 


114 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


serve his manner when a teacher comes to him 
for help, watch him as he moves in and out among 
the children, visit him in his study, if he has one, 
and take note of all you see and don’t see, follow 
him to the teachers’ meeting and see if he is 
helpful there, have a heart-to-heart talk with him 
about his work at some quiet time and place when 
he least surmises your purpose. If you know a 
good superintendent when you see him, and if 
you are a good judge of human nature, you 
will know more about a superintendent by these 
means in a day than you could find out in a year 
by observing him merely as he conducts the 
general exercises of the school. 

5. Winning a Hostile Superintendent.—Not- 
withstanding all his care and his loving regard 
for the interests of the work and the workers, 
occasionally hostility will spring up between the 
pastor and the superintendent. Frequently it 
may be of only short duration; and if the pastor 
will ignore the cause and go right on treating 
him with kindly consideration, all will be well. 
But if it continues, then it is the pastor’s duty, 
since he is the superior officer, to ask for an 


The Pastor's Place of Privilege 115 


interview or a conference on the subject. When 
alone, he should frankly say to the superintend- 
ent that he is willing to do anything he can to 
remove the cause of the difficulty; and perhaps 
before it goes any farther they would better kneel 
in prayer and ask God to remove any bitterness 
or unbrotherly feeling that may exist between 
them. Then let them talk over frankly the diffi- 
culty and come to an agreement as to their fu- 
ture treatment of each other. It were better 
for the pastor to yield much and take upon him- 
self a blame that may really rest upon the super- 
- intendent (provided, of course, there is no prin- 
ciple involved) rather than end the interview 
with the superintendent still intrenched against 
him. You know the Scriptures plainly tell us 
how to heap coals of fire upon the heads of our 
enemies, and it would be well for the pastor to 
do it in that way. 

They say that in Moody’s home town, at 
Northfield, there was a wicked old blacksmith 
who conceived a great dislike for Moody, and 
who accused him of being a hypocrite. He 
never let an opportunity pass to annoy Mr, 


ot i ka 


116 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


Moody, and Mr. Moody never let an opportuni- 
ty pass to do him a kindness; but notwithstand- 
ing this the blacksmith kept up his hostility 
for years. One day his wife fell ill and was 
seriously ill for months. Whenever the doctor 
passed, Mr. Moody always inquired about his 
neighbor’s wife. One day the doctor told him 
that he had ordered her sent to another climate, 
as that was the only possible way of saving her 
life. Immediately Mr. Moody went into the 
house and wrote a letter something like this: “My 
Dear Brother, I learn from the doctor that your 
wife must be sent at once to another climate. 
As times are hard and money may be a little 
scarce, I take pleasure in inclosing my check for 
$25. It may help you in a time of need.” He 
closed with an earnest prayer that God would 
bless him and restore his wife to him in a short 
while in perfect health. The dart went home 
at last, and the hardened old blacksmith read 
the letter to his wife and with tears in his eyes 
exclaimed: “I believe Mr. Moody could make the 
devil love him.” A persistent course of kind- 
ness will usually melt the hardest heart and re- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 114 


move all feelings of hostility or enmity. But if, 
after a pastor has done all that is possible, the 
superintendent refuses to relent (and especially 
if he allows it to interfere with the work of the 
school), then some more heroic method should 
be resorted to. A superintendent of this kind, or 
one who for this or other causes steadily and 
persistently refuses to put into operation plans 
and methods which the pastor and a majority 
of his officers and teachers deem absolutely es- 
sential to the best interest of the school, or if, 
forced to adopt them by pressure of pastor and 
teachers, he goes about it in such a way as to 
insure the defeat of the purposes of pastor and 
teachers, then surely it is time for a resignation 
or removal. The interests of the school should 
at all times be paramount to the interests of 
any individual in it, and it is evidently the pas- 
tor’s duty to see that this principle prevails in 
the conduct of the Sunday school. 

6. Removing an Incompetent Superintendent. 
—If the pastor is unfortunate enough to have to 
deal with an incompetent superintendent, his first 
concern should be to discover whether it springs 


118 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege 


from lack of ability or lack of interest and energy. 
If the latter, then the best way to remove him is 
to make a good superintendent out of him— 
that is, develop him into a good superintendent 
as suggested above. If he refuses to be devel- 
oped, or if he hasn’t the making of a good su- 
perintendent in him, then go to him frankly, tell 
him so, and ask for his resignation. If done in 
the right spirit and in the right way, this can 
often be done without hurting his feelings, 
especially if he is a reasonable man. It isn’t a 
pleasant thing to do or an easy thing to do, but 
sometimes it is a necessary thing to do. It may 
need a great deal of grace and grit to do it; but 
if it ought to be done, it must be done, and the 
pastor is the proper one to do it. 

If he is an old man and has been superintend- 
ent for years, it will be still harder to do. The 
most difficult thing that many Sunday schools 
have to deal with is an old, inefficient superintend- 
ent, a good man, a pillar of the Church, who has 
been in for ten, twenty, or thirty years. It will 
not do to hurt his feelings by asking him to resign, 
or even by accepting his resignation should he 


And Power in the Sunday School. 119 


resign of his own accord. So there you are! 
You’ve just got to wait till he dies. Sad, isn’t it? 
Of course long service is no bar to continued serv- 
ice, provided one has kept up with the times and 
is keeping his work up to a high standard. We 
frequently lay much stress on the value of expe- 
rience, but experience is a hindrance rather than 
a help if it has confirmed one in his errors and 
deepened the ruts beyond the possibility of his 
ever getting out, and too frequently this is the 
result of long service. There are many young 
superintendents who are just as inefficient as 
they will ever be if they stay forever, for they 
have already reached the bottom, but they are 
usually more tractable and more easily gotten 
rid of than an old superintendent. We have 
superintendents who have seen deacons and pas- 
tors come and go until they imagine they own 
the whole thing and all the appurtenances there- 
of, and that no one has any rights except 
to do as they say, especially the new pastor, and 
more especially if he happens to be a young 
man. On the other hand, we have superin- 
tendents who have been in for years, who are the 


120 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


finest examples to be found of what a superin- 
tendent ought to be—for instance, Mr. Law- 
rance, Mr. Pepper, and Mr. Wanamaker, each 
of whom has been superintendent of his school 
for more than a quarter of a century. But these 
men are progressive and up-to-date, and are set- 
ting a pace for younger men. Their schools 
have each doubled, trebled, and quadrupled un- 
der their administration. The signs of progress 
are written all over their schools and are visible 
everywhere. It would be a calamity to lose such 
men as these. So I am not contending for young 
superintendents or against old superintendents, 
but against the mossbacks of all ages. 

The Sunday school of to-day has no use for a 
superintendent, be he young or old, who is not 
going to do something besides open and close and 
harangue the school. He must have time, find 
it, or make it, to prepare himself for his work 
by taking a training course, by reading books 
and current literature, and by attending institutes, 
conventions, and special schools of instruction. 
If he can’t or won’t do that, he isn’t fit for a 
superintendent, though he be a saint in heart 


And Power in the Sunday School. 121 


and life, combined with a Rockefeller in wealth 
and a Washington in reputation. The superin- 
tendent has more to do with the success of a 
Sunday school than is generally supposed, and it 
is time we were beginning to let him know it. 
He is the main channel through which the pas- 
tor’s influence and helpfulness must reach the 
school; and if it be a dammed channel, he can 
either block the work of the pastor or cause an 
overflow of ill feeling and contention that will 
swamp the school. To remove him will often 
make matters worse, but the pastor should cer- 
tainly do so whenever the first opportunity offers. 


CHAPTER IX. 
Tue PASTOR AND THE PARENTS. 


1. An Inexplicable Problem.—There are many 
derelictions of duty for which a reasonable ex- 
cuse can be framed; but why the parents should 
be the greatest stumbling-block in the pathway 
of their own children, as is almost universally 
so in the Sunday school, seems entirely without 
palliation or excuse. It is charged that the Sun- 
day school is largely usurping the function of 
the home in the religious training of the young. 
If so, then the home and not the Sunday school 
is to blame, and the marked indifference of the 
parents to the Sunday school plainly indicates 
that if the Sunday school did not give the reli- 
gious training it would not be given at all. The 
indifference of the parents in this matter is so un- 
reasonable and their position regarding the Sun- 
day school so untenable that it seems it would 
be easy to arouse them from their indifference. 


(122) 


The Pastor in the Sunday School. 123 


2. Laying It on the Parents’ Hearts.—lf, 
therefore, the pastor would lay the matter loy- 
ingly, yet forcefully, on the parents’ hearts, 
they could soon be brought to realize their plain 
duty to the Sunday school. Perhaps many of 
the parents have not had the important work that 
the Sunday school is doing in the religious train- 
ing of the young brought forcefully to their at- 
tention. They know in a general way that the 
Sunday school is doing a good work, but they 
need to be told specifically and urged to give 
not only their influence but their presence to 
the Sunday school. The pastor has many op- 
portunities for bringing the work of the Sunday 
school to the attention of the parents in a force- 
ful and telling way. Most Christian parents 
love their children and desire to use every agen- 
cy to help them rear their children for God. 
They need, first of all, to know the facts regard- 
ing the work the Sunday school is doing, and 
then they need to know the powerful influence 
of their own example in holding pupils in the 
Sunday school or drawing them out of it. 

3. A Parable.—I recently saw this remarka- 


124 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


ble occurrence: I was visiting a large and inter- 
esting Sunday school. While the exercises were 
in progress I saw a man and a woman come to 
the door and hold a hurried consultation. The 
man then came down one aisle, laid his hand on 
the shoulder of a boy about fourteen or fif- 
teen years of age, and in a tone all could hear 
said: “Son, come out of here; this is no place 
for a boy of your age. You will soon be a man, 
and the Sunday school is no place for men.” 
The woman went down another aisle, laid her 
hand on the shoulder of a girl about twelve or 
thirteen years of age, and said practically the 
same thing. As they went out leading their 
children, I said to the superintendent: “Who are 
those people, and what do they mean by their 
strange conduct in leading their children out of 
the Sunday school?” “O!” he said with a sigh, 
“they are prominent members of our Church, and 
such as that is a common occurrence.” The in- 
terpretation is this: While parents are not liter- 
ally doing this, they are actually doing it by their 
own example. 

There comes a time in the life of every boy 


And Power in the Sunday School. 125 


when his one ambition is to be a man. It is 
then that he looks about to see what men are 
doing, and strives in every way to imitate them. 
If father and other men are not in Sunday school, 
then they say by their actions, more potent than 
words, that the Sunday school is no place for 
men, and of course he goes out—perhaps never 
to return. The same is true of a girl. If the 
pastor in some way can get the parents to real- 
ize that by staying away from the Sunday school 
they are leading their children from its blessed 
influence, surely they would give it more seri- 
ous consideration, and many of them would thus 
be induced to go. 

4. Membership First of All—There is little 
use to discuss the question, “How Parents May 
Help the Sunday School,” so long as they can 
go and do not go. Of course they may talk about 
it, read about it, pray for it, encourage it, etc.; 
but of what avail are the help and prayers of 
those who haven’t enough interest to try to 
help answer their own prayers? There are many 
parents, especially mothers, who cannot go to the 
Sunday school, but they can do the next best 


126 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege 


thing—join the Home Department. Until they 
are willing to do that, they cannot be depended 
upon to do much of anything else to help the 
school. An earnest and persistent effort should 
be made to induce the parents to join the school, 
for the double reason that they need the school 
and the school needs them, and no trivial ex- 
cuses for not attending should be accepted. 

5. The Adult Department.—Perhaps one rea- 
son the parents and older members of the Church 
are not attending the Sunday school is that no 
adequate provision is made for them when they 
do attend. We have gone on the assumption 
that the Sunday school is for children only, and 
have planned our work accordingly. It is there- 
fore peculiarly gratifying to see the marked suc- 
cess of the new movement for the adult depart- 
ment that is already sweeping the adult mem- 
bership of the Church into the Sunday school 
in large numbers. The literature on the subject 
is so abundant that pastors will have little trouble 
in organizing their schools along the lines that 
are proving so successful wherever tried. This 
topic is further discussed under the chapter on 


And Power in the Sunday School. 127 


“Grading the Sunday School” and the chapter 
following. 

6. How the Parents Can Help.—While the 
Sunday school should not be for children only, 
it evidently should be for children primarily; 
and while the parents and all the older mem- 
bers of the Church should attend for their own 
good, their chief concern should be to help and 
encourage the children. The very fact that the 
parents are there will give the children an exalted 
idea of the Sunday school and will do much to 
encourage the officers and teachers as well. it 
will also aid in the teaching and discipline. It 
will give the pastor, superintendent, and teach- 
ers an opportunity to confer often with them 
and to suggest ways in which they can help the 
children at home. It will give the parents an 
opportunity to observe the conduct of their chil- 
dren, get acquainted with the teachers of their 
children, and thus enable them to cooperate 
heartily and intelligently with the school in man- 
aging and teaching their children. They can 
encourage their children to attend regularly and 
punctually, to prepare their lessons at home, and 


128 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege. 


to give attention to the teaching in the class. 
Above all, they can enter into a holy alliance 
with the pastor, the superintendent, and the 
teachers in winning their children to Christ and 
bringing them into the Church. Surely no par- 
ent would be willing to have a teacher more in- 
terested in the salvation of his child than he 
himself is, and his regular attendance at the 
Sunday school will give him an opportunity to 
work hand in hand with the teacher in winning 
the child to Christ and in laying the foundation 
of a Christian character on the eternal truths of 
God’s Word. A few experiences like this will 
bind the parent to the Sunday school with bonds 
of interest and affection that can never be 
broken. The pastor, as he comes in contact with 
the parents of his Church, both publicly and pri- 
vately, has abundant opportunity to enlist their 
attendance and cooperation. 


LP TOLD * ee Re 


CHAPTER X. 
Tue PAsToR AND THE LAMBS OF THE Fo p. 


In the light of all that is said in preceding 
chapters, I feel sure that the reader will welcome 
suggestions from other pastors regarding the 
work for and with children. 

tr. Not Fully Appreciated—Here are three 
brief quotations which indicate that this matter 
has not been duly appreciated: 


I am sure that the Church of Jesus Christ is sadly 
neglecting the children. It is true that we have our 
Sunday schools and other organizations for the train- 
ing of children in the knowledge of the Word of God, 
but there is not that definite work for their conversion 
that there should be—Dr. R. A. Torrey. 

As one who loves the Church, believes in it and its 
ultimate triumph, as one who appreciates the magnitude 
of its work and the difficulties in the way of doing it, 
I yet am impelled to say that our Protestant Churches 
have been, and to a large extent are, criminally negligent 
of adequate Christian training of their children—Dr. 
Mead, in “Modern Methods in Sunday School.” 


9 (129) 


130 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


The Sunday school must more and more prove a 
factor of power in the pastor’s work. The writer lays 
claim to no superior wisdom or insight in Sunday school 
problems. Still less does he set himself up as a critic 
of his brethren. But it will be conceded by thoughtful 
readers that there is not an adequate appreciation of the 
Sunday school on the part of many pastors. There is 
not a conventional recognition of it as a legitimate part 
of the machinery of the kingdom, a useful instrument 
of spiritual power. What is needed is that this instru- 
ment should be understood and thoroughly utilized, that 
a keen edge should be put upon it, and that in the hands 
of trained workmen it should cut the material for the 
Lord’s house—Dr. E. Y. Mullins, in Introduction to 
“The Pastor and the Sunday School.” 


2. Its Importance.—Dr. Torrey also says: “No 
other form of Christian effort brings such imme- 
diate, such large, and such lasting results as 
work for the conversion of children. It has 
many advantages over other forms of work. 
First of all, children are more easily led to 
Christ than adults. In the second place, they are 
more likely to stay converted than those appar- 
ently converted at a later period of life. They 
also make better Christians, as they do not have 
so much to unlearn as those who have grown 


And Power in the Sunday School. 131 


old in sin. They have more years of service 
before them. A man converted at sixty is a 
soul saved plus ten years of service; a child 
saved at ten is a soul saved plus sixty years of 
service.” Dr. Mead says: “It may be said of the 
Sunday school that it affords a larger opportuni- 
ty for enlisting and training Christian workers 
than is opened by any other department of 
Church work.” 

3. Preaching to Children.—Preaching to chil- 
dren or talking to children is a difficult but 
important art. Dr. Broadus says: “If a man 
says, ‘I cannot preach to children’—says it 
proudly, as thinking himself too intellectual or 
too erudite, too grand a piece of artillery to be 
used in shooting sparrows, or says it with a 
sort of obstinate humility—then this at least 
may be replied: ‘If you will learn how to preach 
to children, you will thereby become a better 
preacher to grown folks.’ Whatever may be a 
man’s turn of mind, taste, methods, or audience, 
he will be more efficient from having sometimes 
preached to children. Preachers are often 
obliged to resist current tendencies, the fashion 


132 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


of the day; but here is an idea of our age which 
they are entirely at liberty to fall in with—special 
Church effort for the children.” This may seem 
a little harsh, but I am sure it is not so intended. 

Dr. Horace Bushnell has this to say on the sub- 
ject: “Is it not our privilege and duty, as preach- 
ers of Christ, to do more preaching to children? 
I think of nothing in my own ministry with so 
much regret and so little respect as I do of my 
omissions just here. We get occupied with great 
and high subjects that require a handling too 
heavy and deep for children, and become so 
fooled in our estimate of what we do that we 
call it coming down when we undertake to preach 
to children, whereas it is coming up, rather, out 
of the subterranean hells, darkness, intricacies, 
dungeon-like profundities of grown-up sin, to 
speak to the bright daylight creatures of trust 
and sweet affinities and easy convictions. And to 
speak to these fitly, so as not to thrust in Jesus on 
them as by force, but have him win his own way, 
by his childhood, waiting for his cross, tenderly, 
purely, and without art—O how fine, how very 
precious, the soul equipment it will require 


And Power in the Sunday School. 133 


of us! I think I see it now clearly: We do not 
preach well to adults because we do not preach 
(or learn how to preach) to children. God's 
world contains grown-up people and children 
together; our world contains grown-up people 
only; and preaching only to these, who are 
scarcely more than half the total number, it is 
much as if we were to set our ministry to a 
preaching only to bachelors. We dry up in this 
manner, and our thought wizens in a certain 
pomp of pretense that is hollow and not gospel. 
The very certain fact is that our schools of the- 
ology will never make qualified preachers till 
they discover the existence of children.” 

Dr. R. A. Torrey has recently written’a series 
of articles on this subject, “How to Conduct a 
Children’s Meeting,” in the World Evangel. 
The following is a brief summary: 


(1) Give special attention to the children as they 
arrive. Workers of two classes should be provided: 
ushers to seat the children, and personal workers to 
sit with them and deal with them at the close of the 
services. 

(2) Great care should be bestowed upon the singing. 


134 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


Children love to sing and are easily impressed by sing- 
ing. 

(3) Prayer is very important in the children’s meet- 
ing. The prayer should be of such a character that 
the children can understand just exactly what is meant. 
Oftentimes there should be prayers in which the chil- 
dren are taught to follow the leader sentence by sentence 
as he prays. 

(4) There should be a gospel sermon which the chil- 
dren can understand. 

The sermon may contain some of the profoundest 
truths of the gospel, but these truths should be ex- 
pressed in words of which children know the meaning. 
The sermon should be short, as children soon tire. 

The sermon should be simple. There should be no 
long or involved sentences. There should be no com- 
plicated figures of speech. 

The sermon should be full of illustrations, but they 
should be carefully chosen. 

There should be a great deal of action on the part of 
the speaker. He should not only illustrate by his 
words, but by his actions as well. Children love action, 
and we must be animated. 

If I have any gift of simplicity and clearness in 
speech, I owe it largely to speaking so much to chil- 
dren. 


These two books will be found helpful: “Three 


And Power in the Sunday School. 135 


Years with the Children,” Amos R. Wells; “‘Chil- 
dren’s Meetings and How to Conduct Them,” 
Lucy J. Rider, Nellie M. Carmen. 

4. Securing the Conversion of Children.— 
At just what age we should seek the conversion 
of a child is still a disputed question, but it seems 
certain that most pastors of all denominations 
who have given the matter serious thought are 
coming to the conclusion that it should be done 
much earlier than was formerly thought. Those 
who have studied the subject scientifically tell 
us that the first great period of spiritual awak- 
ening comes at about twelve years of age, the sec- 
ond about sixteen, and the third about twenty 
years of age. They tell us also that about sev- 
enty-five per cent of all conversions to-day are 
under twenty-one years of age. These opinions 
are certainly worthy of consideration, but they 
are certainly not conclusive. Many children are 
converted under twelve and at ages other than 
the ones mentioned above. “The Child for 
Christ,” by Dr. A. H. McKinney, is a sane, sensi- 
ble, and helpful book on the subject ; “The Spirit- 
ual Life of the Sunday School,” by Dr. Chapman, 


136 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


is full of fine suggestions; “The Conversion of 
Children,” by Dr. Hammond, the child evangel- 
ist, is perhaps a little radical, but it has some 
fine suggestions in it; “Individual Work for In- 
dividuals,” by Dr. Trumbull, is a work on the 
general subject of soul-winning, but has much 
valuable help for the worker in the Sunday 
school. 

5. Training the Children.—Perhaps the weak- 
est point in our Sunday school work to-day is 
that we have so little for the child to do. Unfor- 
tunately little has been written on the subject. 
The Boys’ Messenger Service is an organiza- 
tion that has proven a boon to the Church in this 
regard. It is an organization for boys from 
twelve to fifteen years of age. It has proven 
a benediction to many. For the older classes 
some form of class organization will prove effec- 
tual in this line. 

6. Securing the Presence of Children at the 
Preaching Service.—There is no doubt that this 
is one of the most vital questions to-day con- 
nected with Church work. The child ought to be 
trained early in life to attend the preaching 


And Power in the Sunday School. 137 


service of the Church. There is something in its 
quiet solemnity, its dignified form, and in the 
appeal of the minister that of necessity is want- 
ing in the Sunday school and that strongly ap- 
peals to the child. The superintendent and 
teachers can do something by going themselves, 
by inviting the children each Sunday to attend, 
and by keeping a record of church attendance. 
The parents can do much if they will, but they 
seem to have very little interest in the matter. 
Perhaps the final solution will be for the pastor 
to so ingratiate himself into the affections of 
the children that they will want to be where he 
is, and for him to so arrange his sermon each Sun- 
day that there will be something in it for the 
children, both to do and to enjoy. I thoroughly 
believe that this can be done. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL. 


THE PASTOR A STUDENT OF SUNDAY SCHOOL MOVE- 
MENTS. 


The pastor, as a leader, must be a student of 
Sunday school movements. It is only by know- 
ing the conditions in the past that the present 
can be clearly understood and the future logic- 
ally planned for. The history of the Sunday 
school is an inspiring one to a student who will 
not only get the facts, but who will seek an in- 
terpretation of them. 

No movement of modern times has a more 
inspiring history than the Sunday school. Born 
amid the squalor and filth of an old England 
town, it has braved the opposition of the clergy, 
the indifference of the laity, and the sneers of the 
wiseacres, and to-day numbers in its ranks the 
largest standing army in the world. It was born 

(138) 


The Pastor in the Sunday School. 139 


outside of the Church, nourished to young and 
vigorous manhood outside of the Church, and 
yet it is to-day the very life of the Church. It 
is only in recent years that the denomina- 
tions, as denominations, have given it any spe- 
cial consideration, and yet it has been a large 
factor in creating denominational loyalty. It is 
the mother of the public school system and 
the penny postage system, two of the greatest 
educational agencies of modern times. It has 
given to the secular schools some of their 
best ideas of management and teaching. It has 
gone into the home and laid hands on the father, 
mother, and baby and literally dragged them 
into the service of the Church. It has created a 
literature that is the marvel of the age, both 
as to quality and to quantity. It has united the 
Christian world in a way that was formerly 
thought to be impossible. It has made the Bible 
the largest-selling book in the world, and has 
put it into more hearts and homes than any other 
agency. Ought we not thank God for the Sun- 
day school ? 

A brief outline, such as follows, can give one 


140 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


only a basis for further investigation. If a deep- 
er insight into the origin, development, and 
genius of the Sunday school movement is de- 
sired, Trumbull’s “Yale Lectures on the Sun- 
day School” and Brown’s “Sunday School Move- 
ments in America” are recommended. 


PERIODS OF SUNDAY SCHOOL PROGRESS. 


The division of the Sunday school movement 
into periods is necessarily arbitrary, but it is 
helpful in getting a comprehensive and at the 
same time a unified grasp of the subject. Looked 
at in its broader aspect, the following periods are 
clearly discernible: 


I, The Period of Germination. 


For many centuries there was no Sunday school 
as we know it to-day, but the germ of the idea 
is discernible in the early history of the Jewish 
nation. 

1. Traditions of the Rabbis —H. Clay Trum- 
bull, in his “Yale Lectures on the Sunday School,” 
gives about the only information obtainable on 
the early history of Sunday schools. He says: 


Pa ey 


And Power in the Sunday School. 141 


“The rabbis tell us (1) that Methuselah was a 
teacher of the Mishna before the flood; that, after 
the deluge, Shem and Eber had a house of in- 
struction where the Halacha was studied; (2) 
that Abraham was a student of the Torah when 
he was three years old, and that he was after- 
wards under the teaching of Melchizedek in mat- 
ters concerning the priesthood; (3) that young 
Jacob as a good boy did go to the Bible school, 
while Esau as a bad boy did not; (4) that Dinah, 
the daughter of Jacob, came to grief through 
playing truant from the Bible school while her 
brothers were in attendance there; (5) that 
among the pupils of Moses in his great Bible 
school were his father-in-law, Jethro, and young 
Joshua, and that the latter was preferred above 
the sons of Moses, as his successor, because of 
his greater zeal and fidelity in the Bible school 
exercises.” 

2. Esra’s Sunday School.—The description of 
what some are pleased to call Ezra’s Sunday 
school is found in Nehemiah viii. 1-8. His as- 
sistants, or teachers, are mentioned there. The 
account says that Ezra read the law and his as- 


142 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


sistants caused the people to understand the law. 
It will be noted that the order of service was very 
similar in some respects to our modern Sunday 
school. 

3. Josephus on Sunday Schools.—Josephus, the 
great Jewish historian, says that from the days of 
Moses it was the custom of the Jews to assemble 
in their synagogues every Sabbath to hear the 
law and to learn it accurately, and that the young 
were so well instructed in the law that they knew 
it better than their own names. Other secular 
writers of the time confirm Josephus. These 
schools, according to Mr, Trumbull, were graded, 
the lessons were carefully chosen, much attention 
was given to the building, and all—both young 
and old—attended both the preaching and teach- 
ing service of the synagogue. These schools 
were held daily except on the Sabbath, so they 
were not Sabbath (Sunday) schools after all. 

4. Sunday Schools in the Time of Christ.— 
(1) We know that Christ both taught and 
preached. Our first view of him in the syna- 
gogue at twelve years of age is asa teacher. (2) 
Mr. Trumbull says; “In the days of Jesus of 


And Power in the Sunday School. 143 


Nazareth there was, in the land of his birth and 
sojourn, a system of Bible schools corresponding 
quite closely in their general feature with our 
modern Sunday schools.” (3) All these schools 
were especially for the young, the Scripture was 
the text, and the catechetical method was used; 
but they were really more in the nature of paro- 
chial schools of our day than of our modern Sun- 
day school. 

5. Later Sunday Schools.—During the first 
sixteen centuries after Christ some provision for 
instructing the young in the Bible was gener- 
ally provided, but little is really known of their 
methods or plans. (2) Mr. Trumbull, who in- 
vestigated this subject most thoroughly, pays 
this high tribute to the teaching of the Word: 
“From the beginning—in short, all the way down 
the centuries—the history of the Christian 
Church shows that just in proportion as the 
Church Bible school (the Sunday school, as we 
now call it) has been accorded the place which 
our Lord assigned to it in the original plan of his 
Church has substantial progress been made in 
the extending of the membership and in the up- 


144 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


building—the “edifying”—of the body of Chris- 
tian believers in the knowledge of God’s Word 
and in the practice of its precepts. And just in 
proportion as the Sunday school agency, or its 
practical equivalent under some name or form, 
has been lacking or has been ignored has the 
Church failed of retaining and continuing the 
vital power of its membership.” (3) Luther, 
Calvin, Zwingle, Knox, Wesley, and other re- 
formers all recognized the power of teaching the 
Word as a basis of preaching the Word, and 
made some provision for it. 

6. Preparation for the Modern Sunday School. 
—(1) In all great movements much is done in 
a quiet, and usually indefinite and unsystematic, 
way to prepare the way. So it was with the 
Sunday school. (2) It remained for Robert 
Raikes, of Gloucester, England, to organize the 
movement in such a way as to attract general at- 
tention and give it an impetus that would insure 
its continuance. It is therefore generally con- 
ceded that he was the founder of the modern 
Sunday school, though there were a few scatter- 
ing Sunday schools before his day. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 145 


II. Period of Extension. 


The history of the Sunday school movement 
dates from 1780, when Robert Raikes made such 
a wonderful success of his work in Gloucester, 
England. The Sunday school and the methods 
of Robert Raikes would hardly be tolerated in’ 
this age of advanced Sunday school work, but he 
started a movement that has revolutionized the 
methods of religious instruction throughout the 
civilized world. 

Strange as it may seem, Mr. Raikes’ schoot 
was not only not connected with any Church, 
but it was fiercely denounced by many of the 
leading ministers of the day, and it was twen- 
ty or thirty years before the Churches made 
it a part of their polity. His school had paid 
teachers, and held two sessions a day, lasting 
from ten to twelve in the forenoon and from one 
till half past five in the afternoon, including 
attendance upon the regular Church services. 
The principal instruction in the forenoon was 
in learning to read, and in the afternoon in 
learning the catechism. It was especially for 
the children of the poorer classes, and Mr, Raikes 

10 


146 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


did not send his own children. Such was the 
crude and unpropitious beginning of the modern 
Sunday school movement. 

This new movement inaugurated by Mr. Raikes 
soon gained such wide repute that his methods 
were sought after far and wide, and organiza- 
tions began to spring up to help and to broaden 
the work. In 1803 the London Sunday School 
Union was organized for the purpose of promot- 
ing Sunday schools, especially those having un- 
paid teachers. Thus the movement spread 
throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. 

The tide of immigration which swept toward 
American shores in the early centuries of our 
history brought with it men who were familiar 
with these new ideas and who were impressed 
with their importance. Thus the movement took 
root on the American soil, and it is here to-day 
that its most luxuriant fruitage appears. In 
1824 the American Sunday School Union was 
started for the purpose of organizing and main- 
taining Sunday schools in destitute places. 
From the very nature of their work they organ- 
ized more union than denominational. schools, 


And Power in the Sunday School. 147 


and are continuing to do so to this day. Not- 
withstanding the fact that Wesley and others 
had pressed the importance of Sunday schools, 
many of the Churches and denominations were 
slow to take up the work; and thus it came about 
that the American Sunday School Union, through 
its missionaries, its tracts, and other literature, 
was the pioneer in this great movement in Ameri- 
ca. A little later the Churches of the various de- 
nominations took up the work and pushed the 
idea, so justly popular to-day, of the Church 
Sunday school. 


III, Period of Organization. 


These paved the way for a great international 
movement, interdenominational in character. At 
an anniversary of the American Sunday School 
Union, Philadelphia, 1832, it was found that fif- 
teen States were represented. After some dis- 
cussion it was decided to call a National Sun- 
day School Convention to meet in New York 
in the fall of that same year. A committee was 
appointed to prepare and send out to Sunday 
school superintendents and others a series of 


Pat ie Oe ae 
yee 


148 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


questions bearing on different phases of Sunday 
school work, and report at the fall convention. 
This committee prepared seventy-eight questions 
on thirteen subjects. Twenty-five hundred of 
these were sent out all over the country, and the 
replies, constituting a quarto volume of 2,400 
pages, were submitted to the convention which 
met in New York in 1832. This was the first 
National Sunday School Convention. About two 
hundred and twenty delegates from fifteen States 
came to this convention. Thus was begun the 
National Sunday School Movement. 

The second National Convention was held in 
Philadelphia the next year, 1833, and then a 
period of twenty-six years elapsed before the 
third was held, in Philadelphia, 1859. Owing 
largely to the Civil War, a period of ten 
years intervened before the fourth was held, 
in Newark, N. J., 1869; but since that time 
the convention has met regularly every three 
years. This fourth convention was the most 
remarkable ever held up to that time. Twen- 
_ty-eight States, besides several foreign coun- 
tries, were represented, It was estimated that 


And Power in the Sunday School. 149 


from 2,500 to 3,000 persons attended the ses- 
sions of this convention. Such noted workers 
as Dr. Eggleston, Dr. Trumbull, Dr. Vincent, 
and B. F. Jacobs were there. The following 
brief report will give some idea of this wonderful 
convention: “The spirit and power of the exer- 
cises can only be faintly shadowed. The Holy 
Spirit was present, filling all the place in which 
the convention sat. Tongues of fire seemed to 
be given to the speakers. The spirit of brotherly 
love and union prevailed. Never before had so 
many Sunday school leaders of the land been 
brought face to face. Taken as a whole, it was 
the most memorable Sunday school gathering 
ever assembled in the United States, if not in 
the world.” 

The next convention (in 1872) culminated in 
one of the most remarkable movements of the 
century—viz., the adoption of the Uniform Inter- 
national Lessons. The next, the sixth National 
Convention, by the admission of delegates from 
Canada, became and is now know as the first In- 
ternational Convention. From this time on 
there has been no national organization, but an 


150 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


international, which at present includes the whole 
of North America. The other nations of the 
world desiring to participate in this movement, 
the first World’s Sunday School Convention was 
held in London in 1889, the second in St. Louis 
in 1893, the third in London in 1898, the fourth 
in Jerusalem in 1904, at which 1,521 delegates 
from twenty-five countries, representing fifty- 
five religions and phases of religion, were rep- 
resented. The fifth met at Rome May 20-23, 
1907. 

As early as 1856 the States began to organize, 
till now every State in the Union and most of the 
Provinces of Canada are organized. Later the 
counties began to organize, and still later the 
townships, thus perfecting the greatest organiza- 
tion the world has ever known, either religious 
or secular. It is world-wide in its sweep, hav- 
ing an unbroken chain of organization extending 
from the townships up through the county, the 
State, the International, to the World, and num- 
bering in its constituents between 20,000,000 and 
25,000,000 Sunday school workers of all denomi- 
nations, The United States has taken the lead 


And Power in the Sunday School. 151 


in all this work, and it has made it the greatest 
Sunday school nation in the world. The United 
States alone enrolls more in the Sunday school 
than all the rest of the civilized world combined. 


IV. Period of Improvement. 


We shall have to go back to 1872, as what 
was said regarding the organized work from that 
time on was merely to follow out the plan of 
organization up to the present. The adoption of 
the International Lessons seemed to give new im- 
petus to the work. The publishing houses began 
to get out helpful and attractive literature, which 
was gradually increased until there is perhaps 
no other agency in the world producing more 
and better literature than the Sunday school. 

Better lessons began to call for better methods. 
A desire for improvement was seen everywhere. 
The International, State, and County Conven- 
tions began to discuss more practical subjects. 
The best brain and heart power in America be- 
gan to evolve new methods and to solve the prob- 
lems of the Sunday school. The grading of the 
school and the training of the workers began to 


- 


152 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


be discussed. In 1881 Mr. W. A. Duncan, of 
Syracuse, N, Y., started the Home Department, 
which is now used extensively by all denomi- 
nations. About 1890 systematic house-to-house 
visitation for new recruits was inaugurated. In 
1890 Mr. M. A. Hudson, of Syracuse, N. Y., 
started a form of class organization known as the 
“Baraca Class.’’ It has proven a wonderful suc- 
cess in winning and holding young men. This, 
with other forms of class organization and class 
federation, is now in almost universal use, espe- 
cially among the more aggressive schools. 

In 1896 Mr. E. F. Westcott, of St. Louis, Mo., 
started “Decision Day,” an evangelistic move- 
ment to win the pupils of the Sunday school 
to Christ. Many souls have been and are being 
swept into the kingdom through its use. About 
the same time the Cradle Roll was started. Mr. 
Meigs says of it: “Here is a Sunday school idea 
that was hatched with wings and began to fly 
all over the Sunday school world as soon as it 
pecked its way out of the shell.” 

In 1899 Mrs. Flora V. Stebbins, of Fitchburg, 
Mass., started the Messenger Service of the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 153 


Home Department. Later the Indiana Sunday 
School Association expanded the idea into a serv- 
ice for all departments of Church and Sunday 
school work. Through the Messenger Service 
boys between the ages of ten and sixteen are 
bound to the Sunday school and Church in a 
way that has proven successful beyond all expec- 
tations. Other methods of minor import were de- 
vised to meet the many perplexing problems of 
the Sunday school till to-day there remains 
scarcely a single one unsolved. 


V. Period of Training. 

It is said that an unskilled workman had bet- 
ter work with dull tools instead of sharp ones. 
So it began to dawn on the Sunday school that 
if these splendid methods were to bring the best 
results they must be in the hands of skilled work- 
men ; and, after trying many devices to get them 
or find them, and it was at last decided that there 
is but one way, and that is to train them. Again, 
in the early times the idea was pretty general 
that, since Sunday school teachers were doing 
the work of the Lord, somehow he would make 


154 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


that teaching efficient, however inefficient the 
teacher. But later it began to dawn upon us 
that God seldom, if ever, does a work for one 
that he can do for himself; and as the subject 
was studied more fully, and various plans were 
devised to secure competent teachers, it was dis- 
covered that to be successful in so important a 
work one must receive definite training. 

Early in our history Dr. Vincent and a few 
others saw the need of training, but it is only 
in the last few years that the idea has become 
general. For several years all that was done 
along the line of training was done by the Asso- 
ciation work. The International and the various 
State Associations are still pushing it vigorous- 
ly; but recently the leading denominations have 
taken it up, adopted courses of their own, and 
are making it a prominent feature of their work. 
The International Association and many of the 
State Associations, as well as some of the lead- 
ing denominations, have Teacher-Training Sec- 
retaries who are making a specialty of this line 
of work. There is also at present an Interna- 
tional Committee on Education that is giving this 


And Power in the Sunday School. 155 


work special attention. They have recommended 
both an elementary and an advanced course for 
which International Diplomas are given. The 
one dominant idea in the minds of all our Sunday 
school leaders to-day is that of training, and the 
next few years will no doubt bring rich results 
from so sane and so necessary a work. 


ANOTHER DIVISION. 


Every individual, every Sunday school—and, 
in fact, the whole Sunday school movement— 
passes through three clearly marked periods in 
the advance to better things. 

I. The Period of Devices.—It might also be 
called the period of awakening—when officers 
and teachers first begin to realize that something 
must be done. It is characterized by a great de- 
sire for devices, usually superficial and therefore 
temporary in their effects. The paramount ques- 
tion is not how, nor why, but what? What can 
I do to overcome this or that difficulty? In this 
stage of development much time and thought are 
given to what are seen later to be trivialities, 
mere baubles that shine and glitter for a while, 


156 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


but soon lose their attraction and are discarded. 
It is really the childhood period of the Sunday 
school work. 

2. The Period of Methods.—In this we are 
passing from the superficial to the profound, 
from devices to methods. The question is no 
longer what, but how? We are now continually 
on the lookout for new and better ways of doing 
things. New methods spring into being as if by 
magic. We are willing to copy any method 
blindly, thoughtlessly, and of course ineffectual- 
ly, simply provided some one has made a suc- 
cess of it, or some Sunday school expert has rec- 
ommended it. America has been passing through 
just such a period for the last quarter century— 
the period of methods. It is the adolescent 
period of our growth. 

3. The Period of Principles, or the Phil- 
osophic Period.—Now we are not satisfied with 
mere devices and finely wrought-out methods, 
but we go deeper and seek for principles. We 
now realize that every true method is based on 
underlying principles, and that, while methods 
change—in fact, must change, to adapt them- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 157 


selves to changing times and conditions—prin- 
ciples are eternal and change not. Our question 
now is no longer what, nor how, but why? Why 
are these things true? Why this failure here? 
Why that success there? What principles are 
involved? We thus discover that we are building 
on a foundation of solid rock, and that our work 
shall be enduring. The work in America is just 
in the beginning of this important period, and 
therefore, to those who realize this, the brightest 
and most prosperous period in the history of the 
Sunday school movement seems to be upon us. 

In our efforts to answer the question “Why?” 
we go to the profound depths of cause and ef- 
fect and strike the solid granite of reason and 
philosophy. We are now entering the period 
of mature manhood, the period of power, and 
therefore of real, substantial progress. The lead- 
ing Sunday schools and Sunday school workers 
of America are now passing into this period. 

As all transitional periods in the life of either 
a school or an individual are critical periods, so is 
this one, and the Sunday school sorely needs the 
guidance of clear-sighted pastors, who look be- 


158 The Pastor's Place of Privilege. 


yond the immediate effects and see in the end a 
glorious consummation of all their plans and 
work. The foundations of the past that we thor- 
oughly believed were founded on the solid rock 
are giving away. The newer and better ideas 
have only heretofore been tolerated by the mass- 
es. Now that these better things are getting a 
firm grip on the leaders, so that they will not be 
put off with a mere hearing, the great Sunday 
school world finds itself in the grasp of a giant 
who is rudely shaking them out of their slum- 
bers. Many do not understand what it all means, 
and they are bewildered. Many others are find- 
ing that it means work, and are deserting. Many 
others find that it means privilege, and are gird- 
ing themselves for the contest. There is going 
to be a great sifting in the next few years. Much 
chaff will be blown out and our Sunday schools 
may be found decreasing in number, but it is a 
decrease on the Gideon plan. After a few years 
we shall begin again to increase, and then watch 
for the greatest revival the world has ever seen. 
Then, indeed, will the Church stand forth as the 
true bride of Christ. 


CHAPTER XII. 
GRADING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


There is no other object connected with Sun- 
day school work on which there exists such a di- 
versity of views as that of grading; and only a 
trained thinker, like the pastor, is able to dis- 
cover the real requirements of a graded school 
as he comes in contact with so many conflicting 
views. Even those who have given much atten- 
tion to the subject differ greatly in their ideas 
of working out the details. One may read the 
ideas of one person, or the methods of one graded 
school, master them, and think he has a com- 
plete grasp of the subject. Perchance his at- 
tention is called to another differing widely, in 
some respects diametrically, from the first, and 
he becomes confused. Still others have a differ- 
ent view, and the more he reads the more he be- 
comes confused. 

This confusion of ideas results principally 


(159) 


160 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


from two things: First, a misconception of what 
a graded school really is, many schools intro- 
ducing splendid ideas in connection with their 
grading, but which in no sense are a part of, or 
essential to, the grading; secondly, the confusion 
of terms, the same word being used by different 
writers to convey different meanings. It is the 
purpose of this chapter to try to clear up at least 
some of these difficulties, to indicate just what 
are the essentials of grading, to give sugges- 
tions for grading, to point out some of its ad- 
vantages, and to suggest plans whereby the best 
results may be obtained. 


NOMENCLATURE. 


Much of the confusion of ideas respecting the 
graded Sunday school is due to a lack of uni- 
formity in the use of terms. The following are 
the most common: 

The terms grade, department, and class are 
used interchangeably. 

A variety of names given to the same depart- 
ments. 

No fixed order for the different departments, 


And Power in the Sunday School. 161 


some placing the Intermediate before, others 
after, the Junior, etc. 

A failure to make a distinction between classi- 
fying and grading; the former being only the 
first step toward the latter. 

Confusing the names of classes with the names 
of departments—e. g., Young Married People’s 
Classes are frequently spoken of as departments. 


DEFINITION OF TERMS. 


We get the following definition of terms from 
the public schools, and I see no reason why they 
may not apply to Sunday school grading also: 

Class——A class is one or more pupils reciting 
the same lesson at the same time to the same 
teacher. 

Grade.—A grade is one or more classes doing 
at the same time the work required in any given 
scholastic year. 

Department. 
grades grouped according to their advancement, 
We grade the school, classify the pupils, and 
adapt the teachers; it is therefore wrong to 


A department is two or more 


speak of grading the pupils or the teachers. 
II 


162 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


SOME FUNDAMENTAL FACTS AND PRINCIPLES, 


1. Our plan of grading is borrowed from the 
public schools. 

2. Because of inherent differences in the pub- 
lic school and the Sunday school, we cannot adopt 
without modification their entire plan of grading. 

3. Some of their plans we can adopt without 
change, others must be modified to suit the 
changed conditions, and others must be rejected. 

4. Since our plan of grading is borrowed from 
the public schools, we should adopt every feature 
of their plan, unless there is some reason why 
we should not. 

5. In arranging any plan of grading, we 
should have well-defined results in view. 

Starting with these truths as a basis, let us 
see first what are the essential features of grad- 
ing in the public schools: (1) The school is di- 
vided into departments, the departments into 
grades, the grades into classes; (2) the depart- 
ments are Primary, Intermediate, Grammar, and 
High School, the latter being subdivided accord- 
ing to the length of time required by the course 
of study, but the last two years being invariably 


And Power in the Sunday School. 163 


called the Junior and the Senior; (3) there is 
little or no importance attached to getting from 
one department to another, except possibly from 
the Grammar to the High School; (4) a grade 
includes the work laid down for one year, and 
all the stress is laid upon the pupil’s doing the 
work satisfactorily, so that he can be promoted at 
the end of the year; (5) promotion is based al- 
most entirely on a certain per cent of the work 
done; (6) these per cents are determined by the 
teacher’s class records, by examinations, and other 
tests. 


ESSENTIALS OF A GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL, 


There seem to be only five requirements for a 
graded Sunday school: 

1. Pupils of about the same age and grade must 
be grouped into classes of convenient size. 

2. The classes must be grouped into depart- 
ments, each covering three or four years’ work. 

3. There must be a standard of work corre- 
sponding to the course of study in the public 
school. 

4. There must be regular and stated promo- 


Fo See ee 
. > 


164 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


tions from grade to grade, or at least from de- 
partment to department, based on this standard. 

5. Each teacher should be put in the depart- 
ment where he can do his best work, and kept 
there. This is sometimes called grading the 
teachers, but is clearly a wrong use of the term. 

I should unhesitatingly say that a Sunday 
school that has all these is graded, and that it is 
not graded should any one of them be lacking. 
In meeting these requirements each school must 
work out its own problems, but a fuller discus- 
sion of each may prove helpful. 

1. Classification.—The pupils of every Sunday 
school should be classified, even if the other re- 
quirements for grading are not undertaken. In 
classification, at least five things will come up 
for consideration: (1) The basis of classifica- 
tion; (2) the number of classes; (3) the size of 
classes; (4) by whom it should be done; (5) se- 
lecting teachers. Age, size, grade in public 
school, ability, willingness to study, and social 
relations will all have to be considered in classi- 
fication. In the public schools the basis is ad- 
vancement, or what the pupil actually knows; 


And Power in the Sunday School. 165 


but in the Sunday school other things must be 
considered. It will not be found best to put pu- 
pils varying too much in size and age in classes to- 
gether. It will be humiliating to the older and 
larger pupils, and besides their ability to under- 
stand is greater than that of the younger pupils, 
notwithstanding their lack of general informa- 
tion or book knowledge. A perfect classification 
requires one thing only for a basis, but it will be 
found best to take age and grade (advancement) 
as the basis, modified by size, ability, willingness 
to study, etc.; and even social distinctions must 
be observed in a quiet, sensible, unobtrusive way. 

In a poorly classified school, where many 
changes are necessary, some opposition may be 
looked for when a change of classes and teach- 
ers is announced; and unless it is gone at in a 
tactful way, serious trouble may ensue. The 
plans should all be laid and agreed upon by 
officers and teachers, the classes formed, or rather 
re-formed, and then the superintendent should 
notify each pupil where he is to sit, without con- 
sulting the pupil. After classes are formed in 
this way, assign the teacher to each—that is, 


ee ae hee ed ag ae 
Yt . 


166 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


form your classes before you assign the teach- 
er to the class, so the pupils will not know who 
their teacher is to be until all the classes are 
formed. This is a little bit of strategy that will 
help. Some pupils will make thrcats, but a lit- 
tle firmness and kindness will conquer all diffi- 
culties. Let the pupils clearly understand that the 
good of the entire school is always paramount to 
that of any individual in it. The idea of taking 
five or six years to grade a school is cowardly, 
to say the least. 

The number and size of the classes will be 
determined by the size of the school, the facil- 
ities of the building, and the qualifications of 
the teachers. Where there are class rooms, 
the classes can be larger than where there are 
none. A good teacher can teach a larger class 
than a poor teacher. No teacher should be giv- 
en more pupils than he can teach well when 
they are present and look after when they 
are absent. This classification, together with 
all grading and promoting, should be done 
by the superintendent in a small school, and 
by the superintendent and his committee on 


And Power in the Sunday School. 167 


grading, or the superintendent of grading, in a 
large school. Of course all new pupils must be 
properly classified when they enter the school, 
or the grading will soon go to pieces. In placing 
the teachers, very great care should be taken 
to place each one where he can do the best work, 
and then keep him there. It does not stand to 
reason that any teacher can teach all grades and 
ages equally well. In fact, it will be found that 
every teacher can teach some class or grade 
better than any other, and this is certainly where 
he belongs. 

2. Departments.—There is, unfortunately, no 
agreement among Sunday schools on this point. 
Some have one number and give them certain 
names; others have a different number and give 
them altogether different names. Some call the 
department following the Primary the Junior, 
others call it the Intermediate. The latter is in 
line with the use of the term in secular schools, 
but the International Executive Committee and 
the Editorial Association recommend the former. 
Many schools place the Home Department and the 
Training Department as divisions of the main 


168 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


school, but they seem rather to be coordinate 
with it. The following arrangement is suggested 
as the simplest, the latest, and therefore the 
best: 


I. Main School. 


1. Primary: 

(1) Beginners—Nonreaders; age, three, 
four, and five years. 

(2) Primary Proper, First, Second, and 
Third Grades; age, six, seven, and 
eight years. 

2. Junior: 

Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Grades; 

age, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve years, 
3. Intermediate: 

Eighth, Ninth, Tenth Grades; age, thir- 

teen, fourteen, and fifteen years. 
4. Adult: 

Age, sixteen and over. The first three 
or four years of the Adult Department 
is sometimes called the Senior, but there — 
is a tendency to drop the use of the term. 


IT. Cradle Roll. 


All who are too young to attend the Main 
School, 


And Power in the Sunday School. 169 


III, Home. 


All who cannot or will not attend the Main 
School. 


IV. Training. 


All officers and teachers, actual and prospective. 


Of course the above ages and g-ades for the 
various departments are only suggestive and 
should not be too strictly adhered to, as some pu- 
pils are often a year or two ahead of others of the 
same age in mental development. The Begin- 
ners’, Primary, and Junior are now known as Ele- 
mentary Grades. Where the size of the school 
and the arrangements of the building will permit, 
there should be a superintendent over each de- 
partment, all, of course, being under the control 
of the general superintendent. Where all the 
classes recite in the same room, each department 
should have a certain part of the room assigned 
to it. Teachers best adapted to a particular 
grade of work should be permanently assigned 
to that department. When their pupils are pro- 
moted to another department, they should take 
another class, thus remaining while their classes 


170 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


goon. The number of classes in any department 
will be determined by the size of the school. In 
very small schools there may be but one class to 
each department. When you have classified your 
pupils and arranged your classes into depart- 
ments, you are ready to begin the real work and 
you will need a standard of work to guide you. 
For mental characteristics and methods adapted 
to the various departments see next chapter. 

3. Standard of Work.—In the public graded 
school the course of study is the nucleus around 
which gathers the entire plan. The Sunday 
school cannot so easily map out a course of study, 
but it ought to have some standard of work 
showing clearly the work of each department, 
if not of each grade, and pupils should be re- 
quired to do this work as a condition of promo- 
tion. The standard should not be too high and 
difficult to reach, nor yet so low as not to require 
a commendable effort to reach it. 

There are those who contend that it is impossi- 
ble to grade the school where all grades are study- 
ing the same lesson, or even with a different les- 
son for the beginners and the advanced classes as 


And Power in the Sunday School. 171 


we now have it. It should be remembered that 
grading must be in both matter and method, and 
that even a short passage of Scripture taken at 
random will almost surely contain some matter 
for every age and grade if it is only presented in 
the right way. In the public schools the rudi- 
ments of nearly all the higher branches are now 
introduced in the Primary Department, such as 
botany, geology, zodlogy, astronomy, ethics, etc. ; 
but the matter and method are both chosen with a 
great deal of care. With the same amount of 
care we do not need a better selection of Scrip- 
ture lessons for grading than those chosen by 
the International Lesson Committee. In fact, 
most if not all, of our publishing houses are 
now grading their lesson material by furnish- 
ing a paper or quarterly for each department. 
I am not contending that it would not be easier 
to grade if we had a thoroughly graded lesson 
system, but that it is not impossible to grade 
without it. 

Now what shall constitute this standard of 
work? The very least that can be required is 
a certain per cent of the lessons as given in the 


wee 
‘ 


172 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


quarterly studied by the class. While not neces- 
sary to grading, some supplemental work for each 
department will be found very helpful. Some 
teachers will contend that they cannot find time 
for it, but they are usually teachers who have 
never tried it. From three to five minutes once 
or twice a month by the teacher, with the same 
amount of time by the superintendent, on the 
same matter as a Bible drill will accomplish won- 
ders. Try it and be convinced. In the selection 
of supplemental work, if it is preferred to 
grade the school on this rather than on the 
regular lessons, the field is practically illimitable. 
No course will, therefore, be given here, but a 
few general principles suggested. 

The subject-matter should be: (1) Graded; (2) 
short; (3) easy; (4) definite. Graded carries 
with it two ideas: That it should be the very best 
attainable for the mental and spiritual growth, 
and that it should be adapted to the age and 
mental power of the child. It should be short 
and easy, so that the child and the teacher will 
not feel that they are undertaking something that 
is impossible. However, as a rule, we underesti- 


‘And Power in the Sunday School. 173 


mate the ability of the child to memorize, and most 
supplemental work is to be memorized. There 
are numerous instances on record of where chil- 
dren under eight years of age have committed to 
memory more than two thousand verses of Scrip- 
ture in one year. Of course this is too much, 
but it goes to show how much can be done un- 
der pressure. It should be definite—that is, it 
should be capable of an exact answer. It would 
not do to say that the supplemental work of a 
certain grade should be to learn something of 
Moses, the Mosaic Code, the Holy Land, etc. 
This is too indefinite. The course of study 
should state exactly what is to be learned of 
these. It is better, in fact, not to select such ma- 
terial as this for supplemental work, but let this 
be taught in connection with the regular lessons. 
Some schools grade entirely on the supplemental 
work, but it can just as easily be done on the 
regular lessons. 

4. Promotions——The fourth requirement for a 
graded Sunday school is regular annual promo- 
tions. When a pupil has reached the required 
standard of work (say 60 to 80 per cent of the 


174 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


work required for his grade), he should be pro- 
moted. To determine when he has reached 
this standard, it is necessary that careful and 
complete records of his work be kept, and that 
certain tests of his work be made from time to 
time. The teacher should keep a class record, 
and in addition to this frequent reviews and quar- 
terly written examinations for the grades above 
the primary should be held. Many publishing 
houses now issue these questions regularly. The 
standing of each pupil should be kept just as care- 
fully as it is in the day school, and reports should 
be sent regularly to parents. 

There should be a regular annual promo- 
tion day. On this day public exercises should 
be held. Those who are to be promoted 
should in some way be given public recog- 
nition, and much should be made of the occa- 
sion. Certificates of promotion should be pub- 
licly awarded, especially to those who are pro- 
moted from one department to another. The 
promotion from grade to grade in a department 
can be done ina less pretentious way. Those who 
fail to do the work because of late entrance, ab- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 175 


sence, or lack of study, should be promoted with- 
out honors or placed in separate classes. Let it 
be remembered that when a class is promoted 
the teacher should also be promoted while in a 
given department, but that the teacher should 
never be promoted beyond his department. 

5. Grading the Teachers.—Perhaps all will not 
agree that this is essential to grading; but, to say 
the least, the best results cannot be obtained with- 
out it. It simply means that each teacher, as 
heretofore explained, should be placed and kept 
in the department to which he is best adapted 
and where he can therefore do his best work. 


ADVANTAGES, 


The advantages of grading are numerous and 
obvious. It puts pupils and teachers where they 
can do their best work; it puts pupils of like age 
and advancement together; it puts the manage- 
ment of the school into the hands of the authori- 
ties. Too often the school suffers through the 
whims of pupils, and of teachers too, I am sorry 
to say. In many schools each teacher and each 
pupil is a law unto himself, and the superintend- 


176 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


ent is a mere figurehead. Grading does away 
with this. It asks for work, expects work, re- 
cords the results, and rewards the faithful. Thus 
good work is secured from both teachers and 
pupils. 

A SUMMARY. 

The following suggestions are taken from “An 
Up-to-Date Sunday School,” by the author, and 
give in brief space the substance of the whole 
subject: 

1. How to Grade a Sunday School.—(1) Real- 
ize the necessity for it. (2) Determine to do it. 
(3) Get the cooperation of your officers and 
teachers. (4) Appoint a committee of the most 
influential members to help you. (5) Get the 
name, age, and grade (the readers they use in 
the public school if the public school is not 
graded) of every pupil under eighteen. (6) 
Take your school and begin as though you were 
just organizing. (7) Organize classes, putting 
pupils of about the same age and grade together. 
(8) Appoint teachers for each class after the class 
is formed, (9) Insist on every pupil and every 
teacher taking the place assigned him. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 177 


2. Principles and Suggestions—(1) The size 
of the class should be determined by the ability 
of the teacher and the facilities of the building. 
Some teachers will manage and teach a class of 
twenty better than others will a class of five. If 
you have class rooms, some teachers can easily 
teach a class of twenty-five or more; ten will be 
enough for most teachers. If all recite in the 
same room, no teacher should be given more than 
ten or twelve, and usually six or seven will be 
better. (2) Put boys and girls in the same classes 
in the Primary Department. (3) Separate them 
in the Junior and Intermediate Departments. (4) 
It is immaterial in the Adult Department, but the 
best results are usually obtained by separating 
the sexes and by giving each class a teacher of 
its own sex. (5) As a rule, appoint lady teach- 
ers for the Primary Department. (6) As a rule, 
in the Intermediate Department, give the girls 
women for teachers and the boys men. (7) If 
any of the pupils will not do the required work, 
promote them without honors or form special 
classes for them. (8) New pupils should always 
be assigned to classes by the superintendent or 

12 


178 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


his cabinet. (9) If you find that you have made 
mistakes in assigning teachers or pupils, re-as- 
sign. Some teachers will do excellent work with 
one class and utterly fail with another. Some can 
teach boys best; others, girls. Some can do the 
best work in one department; others, in another. 
(10) Be firm (not stubborn). Never allow teach- 
ers or pupils to select their own classes, but 
defer to their wishes when it can be done with- 
out interfering with the working of the school. 
(11) Pupils should be required to do about sev- 
enty-five per cent of the work and learn the sup- 
plemental work, if desired, as a condition of pro- 
motion. (12) This can be ascertained by re- 
views, examinations, and the teachers’ records. 
(13) Pupils who fail to do the work of any 
grade because of late entrance, absence, or lack 
of study should be permitted to go on with their 
classes or should be placed in classes of about 
equal age and advancement, but should not re- 
ceive promotion cards or certificates of gradua- 
tion or honorable mention. (14) It will be im- 
possible to so thoroughly classify your school 
that the pupils of any given class will be the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 179 


same age and grade (public school), but this 
should be the ideal. (15) If opportunity pre- 
sents, familiarize yourself with some good, well- 
graded public school. The work is not identical, 
but similar. 


CHAPTER XIII. 
StTuDIES IN HuMAN NATURE BY DEPARTMENTS. 


A knowledge of the child is just as necessary to 
successful teaching as a knowledge of the lesson, 
but the subject is so technical that the average 
teacher will get little out of it unless guided by 
the pastor. No subject is attracting more atten- 
tion to-day than this, among both secular and 
religious teachers. Perhaps as many as a thou- 
sand books have been written on this subject in 
the last decade. Many questionnaires have been 
sent out asking almost every conceivable ques- 
tion of children of all ages and conditions. Much 
valuable information is gotten in this way; but 
much of it is misleading, and consequently the 
conclusions drawn from it are erroneous. 

Much that is written is mere theory, and would 
be of little practical value to the average teacher. 
Only those things that are considered as settled 
facts are presented here, and only such of these 


as bear a vital relation to the teacher’s work. 
(180) 


The Pastor in the Sunday School. 181 


While life is a continuous stream, yet there 
are points at which there seems to be such a 
marked change in its character that it has been 
divided into periods. The division of a school 
into departments is not, therefore, wholly arbi- 
trary or merely for convenience, but is based 
on important laws governing child nature. For 
convenience it will, therefore, be just as well 
to make the divisions as they are made in the 
graded Sunday school. 


PERIODS OF GROWTH AS INDICATED BY THE GRADED 
SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


1. The Cradle Roll.—From birth to three years 
of age. These are not dealt with directly by the 
teacher. 

2. The Primary.—Age three to eight years. 
(1) Those under six who cannot read are now 
termed the beginners. They correspond to the 
kindergarten of the public school. They are at 
that period of life when the world is a great 
unknown region, into which they peer with won- 
dering eyes. The senses are acute and active, 
and all teaching must be through them. One of 


182 The Pasior’s Place of Privilege 


the most important duties of the teacher is to 
train the children in correct observation. There 
can be very little class instruction at this age. 
While love and sympathy are essential to success- 
ful work with all children, it is imperative here. 
(2) This is the period of greatest physical ac- 
tivity, and the children should be allowed to 
change position frequently. (3) Children of this 
age are striving to adjust themselves to their 
surroundings, and need the sympathetic aid of a 
teacher in whom the mother instinct is strong. 
(4) Mentally, children of this age seem to be 
a bundle of instincts, which develop later into a 
bundle of habits, and the teacher is to guide 
and give direction to the development. See sec- 
tion on “How Instincts Become Habits.” (5) 
The play instinct is especially strong. If given 
an opportunity, the child will show its interpreta- 
tion of its teaching by the application that it 
makes of it to its play. The best possible time 
to study the children is at play. Here they are 
more natural and more free to express themselves 
than elsewhere. (6) Reasoning and judgment 
exist only in a rudimentary form. The child 


And Power in the Sunday School. 183 


has learned to trace the connection between acts 
and their consequences, but no power of drawing 
conclusions from abstract facts is yet developed. 
(7) Children at this age are highly imitative, and 
the teacher, through her personal influence, must 
develop in the minds of the children those 
thoughts and feelings that point Godward. She 
must be what she wishes the children to become. 
(8) The memory at this age is concrete, and the 
child can readily recall what he hears or sees, but 
not what is told him as a mere abstraction. (9) 
The imagination is strong and verges dangerous- 
ly near to fancy. The child is frequently unable 
to distinguish between fact and fancy, and should 
not be accused of falsehood when he “sees things 
at night,” or even in the daytime for that mat- 
ter. Exaggerations are frequent. (10) The emo- 
tions are fickle, but it is now believed that every 
strong emotion in a child leaves a deposit of char- 
acter, either for good or for bad, that will ever re- 
main. (11) A child’s feelings develop before 
his intellect. He can learn to love before he can 
understand. (12) To a great extent, children of 
this age are egoistic or selfish. They have not 


184 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


yet learned that “there are others.” It is a great 
wrong to a child to encourage this disposition. 
It is only the seed of humanity germinating in 
the virgin soil of self; and it is the teacher’s duty, 
through loving deeds to others, to train the grow- 
ing organism away from self and toward God and 
humanity. (13) Fear, wonder, curiosity, and 
delight are emotions that the teacher may appeal 
to at this age. (14) The teacher’s greatest op- 
portunity is in the implicit faith of the child in 
all things. If not deceived, it believes absolutely 
everything that is told it. (15) Little discern- 
ment of right and wrong is present, and the child 
must learn by practice to distinguish them. A 
child at this age can be taught that almost any- 
thing is right or wrong. Hence the importance 
of correct teaching. (16) The child responds 
readily to rhythm at this age, and hence delights 
in music, motion songs, marching, ete. (17) 
Self-government is a thing unknown, and there- 
fore the personality of the teacher must be su- 
preme. (18) The vocabulary and experience are 
exceedingly limited. The teacher should there- 
fore use the very simplest words and get down 


And Power in the Sunday School. 185 


on the intellectual plane of the child. (19) The 
children of this age are self-unconscious and sex- 
unconscious. Hence, boys and girls may be put 
together in classes, and social distinctions may be 
ignored here that will demand consideration in 
the other departments. (20) Do not teach what 
is wrong, but what is right. Every fault is the 
lack of some virtue that it has displaced. It is 
a great mistake to construct a catalogue of wrong 
words and acts to be avoided by the pupils of 
this age. Later it may perhaps be done. It not 
only puts wrong ideas into their heads not there 
before, but distorts the right ideas there. Posi- 
tive, not negative, teaching is what the child 
needs. Sow the virgin soil of heart and mind 
with seeds of righteousness, and seeds of evil 
cannot grow. 

3. The Junior.—Age nine to twelve. (1) This 
is the habit-forming period par excellence. The 
foundation of correct experiences should now be 
built into correct habits. The teacher should be 
thoroughly familiar with the evil influences that 
beset children of this age. This is the age when 
companionships are formed. <A child does not 


186 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


like to play alone, as in the previous period. The 
teacher and the parent should codperate heartily 
in the selection of companions for the children 
and proper books for their reading and in the 
formation of correct habits. (2) Perception is 
still the dominating faculty, and the child is ever 
on the alert to see things, both with the eye and 
the mind. Reproducing stories is one of the very 
finest exercises for training this faculty. The 
teacher should require accuracy in every detail, 
though the story should always be reproduced 
in the child’s own words. (3) The memory now 
becomes strong and active. By a little tact and 
encouragement the child can be induced to do a 
marvelous amount of memory work, perhaps too 
much by over-stimulation if not carefully guarded. 
Even abstract terms and statements can now be 
readily memorized, but the teacher should exer- 
cise great care in the selection of material. Asa 
rule, a child should not be required to commit any- 
thing that cannot in some measure be understood 
and applied at the time or in the immediate fu- 
ture. (4) The imagination is still strong, but has 
taken a more practical turn, The child delights 


And Power in the Sunday School. 187 


in weaving former experiences into new and 
novel forms. A splendid exercise is to have the 
pupil describe past events as though they were 
present. It is the age of make-believe, especially 
as applied to their play, and games of make-be- 
lieve and deception are engaged in heartily. (5) 
Imitation is still strong, but is perhaps more un- 
conscious than intended. The children uncon- 
sciously take on the habits of life and thought 
of those about them, and, as it is the great habit- 
forming age, teachers should guard carefully 
their own inner as well as outer life, because chil- 
dren of this age are great mind readers and dis- 
like shams. (6) The reasoning faculty is not yet 
fully developed, though the judgment and infer- 
ential reasoning is in active play, limited, of 
course, by the experience and observation of the 
child. It is a great mistake to adopt the argu- 
mentative style of teaching with children of this 
age. The question or conversational method of 
recitation is the best. (7) Curiosity is still strong 
and may be made much use of by the teacher. 
(8) The will should be trained in obedience, but 
children should not be urged to make decisions 


188 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


beyond their comprehension or to give expression 
to feelings and experiences they have never had. 
(9) The healthy child of this period is full of 
mischief and “pranks,” and the teacher should 
be able to distinguish sharply between mischief 
and meanness. The boy’s name for mischief is 
“fun,” and a healthy outlet should be provided 
for this spirit of fun. One writer says a boy is 
50 per cent fun and o per cent work. If this be 
true, we must give recognition to it in dealing 
with boys. (10) At this age the boys and girls 
seem to have a natural antipathy for each other. 
It is the boy’s delight to tease the girls; and un- 
less a teacher is strong in government, she will 
find her class in continuous turmoil if she has 
both girls and boys in it. It is better to put them 
in separate classes in this department. (11) It 
is immaterial whether the classes are taught by 
men or women, as this sex-repellant disposition 
does not extend to adults. (12) At the latter part 
of this period, and the early part of the next, 
there comes a great religious awakening in the 
minds of most children. This is, therefore, the 
golden opportunity of the teacher to win the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 189 


child to an acceptance of Christ and bring him 
into the Church. 

4. The Intermediate.—Age thirteen to fifteen. 
(1) The age from twelve to twenty-five is often 
called the period of adolescence, ranging from 
puberty to manhood and womanhood. It is some- 
times divided into early, middle, and later ado- 
lescence, the intermediate coming in the first di- 
vision. The female is from one to three years 
in advance of the male in development. (2) At 
twelve to fourteen years of age there is virtu- 
ally a new birth, physically and mentally, and 
spiritually, if preceded by wise and proper in- 
struction. The voice of the boy “changes” and 
becomes an octave lower. The form of the girl 
begins to fill out and develop rapidly. The dor- 
mant powers of sex begin to function, and rapid 
growth of the whole body takes place. Corre- 
sponding changes occur in the nervous system, 
in respiration, circulation, and all the vital forces 
of the body. (3) The mental changes are no less 
marked and varied. Childhood has flown, and 
the boys and girl find themselves confronted with 
feelings and emotions that they themselves do not 


190 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


understand. This has been called the “storm 
and stress” period. The fogs are lifting and the 
atmosphere is being cleared for life’s voyage. 
Perilous times are ahead, and the dim-visioned 
youth needs sympathetic guidance as never before 
or after. (4) Doubts begin to appear, the solid 
foundations of childhood seem to be giving way, 
and the newborn adolescent knows not whither 
to fly for safety. (5) The boy becomes self-con- 
scious, awkward, overbearing, restless, timid, 
cross, rough, self-willed, and lonely. He craves 
sympathy, but will not court it. He has his love 
affairs, his longings, his “scrapes,” his fads, his 
hobbies, his chums. He enjoys teasing, sleight-of- 
hand tricks, rough jaunts, and ridiculous and sur- 
prising performances. He is sure the world mis- 
understands him. The girl becomes sensitive, co- 
quettish, coy, imaginative, given to day-dreaming 
and emotional experiences. Each has lofty ideals 
and multitudinous plans for the immediate future. 
(6) The forces of good and evil, heredity and en- 
vironment, self and non-self, seem to be contend- 
ing for mastery. (7) This is the age when chil- 
dren drop out of the Sunday school, not so much 


And Power in the Sunday School. 191 


because they have really made up their minds to 
do so, but because they want to do the unusual. 
The only way to hold them is to get into as per- 
fect accord with them as possible, humor their 
whims, and show deep sympathy in all of their 
plans. Restraint both at home and at school is 
distasteful to pupils of this age, and they must be 
led largely by suggestion. (8) It is better to 
have men teach the boys and women the girls 
in this department, still keeping the sexes sepa- 
rated, for this is the period of transition from 
the sex-repellent to the sex-attractive age, and 
conflicting emotions so disturb the mind that sep- 
aration is best. (9) Perhaps the best training for 
children of this age is active Christian work that 
requires a great deal of physical and not much 
intellectual or emotional activity. The Boys’ 
Messenger Service came into existence to meet 
this need. This kind of work keeps the youth’s 
thought from centering too much on self and as- 
suming morbid and unreasonable forms. (10) 
Perhaps the best method for the recitation is the 
topical or analytic, combined with the catechet- 
ical. Blackboard work, the right kind of pic- 


192 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


tures, and stories of heroes appeal to pupils of 
this age. (11) It should be borne in mind that 
there are no fixed rules by which children of any 
age, but especially adolescents, can be controlled, 
taught, or trained. Heredity, environment, tem- 
perament, previous training, home government, 
food, state of health, physical defects, and a va- 
riety of other things must be taken account of 
by the teacher. One pupil may need stern au- 
thority ; another, a mother’s soothing touch; an- 
other, a physician. All that any teacher can do 
is to study the general characteristics to be ex- 
pected of his class, study each individual of the 
class in the light of every influence, and then 
with God’s help to live the life he ought to live 
and do his best to teach aright. (12) The begin- 
ning and close of this period is also marked by 
great religious awakenings, and the teacher has 
the blessed privilege of anchoring the turbulent 
youth in the safe harbor of God’s love, if only he 
is willing to pay the price of an all-pervading 
love and sympathy for his class, an infinite pa- 
tience, and an abiding faith in the power of 
Christ to save to the uttermost. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 193 


5. Senior, or Early Adult.—Age sixteen to 
twenty. (1) This is the age when the forces at 
work in the preceding period begin to coordinate 
themselves and take definite form. (2) The 
youth desires above everything else to become 
a man. He now blacks the heels of his shoes, 
brushes his hair till it shines, dons immaculate 
linen and the latest style of clothes. He must 
have a watch and a razor. He has sudden, 
inexplicable twitchings about the heart when in 
the presence of girls, and an unutterable void in 
their absence. He often examines his chin and 
upper lip for a coming event that usually casts 
its shadow before; and when it comes, he nurses 
it and fondles it with a tenderness born of manly 
pride. He at last has a mustache and is a man. 
Now, all this seems ridiculous to us, but to him 
it is the most serious part of his life; and if we 
would keep in his good graces, we must not make 
light of him but treat him seriously. The maid 
desires to become a woman, and is just as par- 
ticular to adorn herself in every way to add wom- 
anly charm. (3) The social, moral, and reli- 


gious instincts develop rapidly and take definite 
13 


194 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


lines of action. This, then, is another period, 
especially at its beginning and at its close, when 
a golden opportunity presents itself for conver- 
sion. (4) The interests are varied, uncertain, 
and shifting, and the teacher can be of great 
service to his pupils by holding them steadily and 
tactfully to the right. No class of students needs 
to be studied more carefully, prayerfully, and 
sympathetically than these. (5) The teacher 
needs to be sure of himself and of every state- 
ment he makes, as his class will be critical, over- 
exacting, and doubting. They must have a sat- 
isfactory reason for everything. (6) Conflicting 
emotions and dispositions characterize this age. 
At one time the good seems to be in the ascend- 
ency, at another the evil. This is hard to under- 
stand; but we must be careful not to class it as 
hypocrisy, for it is not. (7) This is another pe- 
riod of leakage in the Sunday school. The great- 
est sin of the parent against the child and the 
school comes in just here. We have seen this to 
be the age when a boy wants to become a man” 
and the girl a woman. Naturally they assume 
the manners, habits, and customs of the men and 


And Power in the Sunday School. 195 


women about them. If father and mother and 
other men and women do not go to Sunday 
school, they naturally infer that it is not the place 
for men and women, and therefore stay away. 
(8) The age of doubt reaches its climax in this 
period, and faith and conviction begin to take 
deep root, if ever. (9) The reason has now 
reached a high degree of development, and the 
youth finds his most delightful mental exhilara- 
tion in the exercise of it. He delights in argu- 
ment, and the argumentative style of teaching 
appeals strongly to him. (10) The verbal mem- 
ory has gradually given way to the logical mem- 
ory. All memory work, therefore, should be not 
to memorize mere words and set formulas, but 
thoughts. However, the memorizing of Scrip- 
ture should not be entirely discarded. If this 
habit was well founded in the Junior and Inter- 
mediate departments, there will be little trouble 
in having it exercised here. (11) The club idea 
is especially strong at this age, and the best way 
to meet it is through class organization on the 
Baraca or some other plan. (12) Those who 
have made a special study of the subject tell us 


196 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


that the young man at this period of life finds 
that his greatest trials come to him through high 
temper. The teacher should, therefore, stress the 
importance of self-control and should show the 
evil effects of giving way to one’s temper. The 
second in the catalogue is that of the sexual im- 
pulse. At first glance it would seem that this is a- 
subject that should not concern the Sunday school 
teacher; but when we remember the remiss- 
ness of parents on this point and the relation it 
bears to a life of personal purity, we ought not 
to hold our peace. This is an exceedingly delicate 
subject to deal with; and if the teacher feels that 
he cannot speak to his pupils personally, he can 
put the right kind of books into their hands and 
suggest lines of work and reading that will 
lead them to think on other things. This is anoth- 
er strong reason why boys should be taught by 
men and girls by women. The close of this period 
is another period of spiritual awakening. You 
may test it in any audience of Christian workers, 
and you will find that a majority of them were 
converted about twelve, sixteen, or twenty, the 
three periods of spiritual awakening. Statistics 


And Power in the Sunday School. 197 


carefully gathered show that about three-fourths 
of all conversions these days are between twelve 
and twenty-one. These are facts fraught with 
deep meaning to the pastor, superintendent, and 
teacher. It is a fearful thing to think that if 
we allow our boys and girls to' pass twenty 
without conversion three-fourths of the proba- 
bility that they will ever be converted is gone for- 
ever. It indicates with unerring exactness that 
childhood is the hope of the Church, and empha- 
sizes the importance of our work. 

6. The Later Adult.—One reason why we have 
so few men and women in the Sunday schools is 
that no special effort is made to get them and no 
special arrangements are made for them in the 
Sunday school when they do come. A special 
department should be arranged for them just as 
much as for other ages. The very best teachers 
possible should be secured and no expense should 
stand in the way of proper housing and a thor- 
ough equipment in the way of maps, charts, 
models etc. In large schools it may be found 
best to divide the department into three divisions, 
as they are marked by as clear distinctions and 


198 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


characteristics as any of the lower departments. 
These may be called (1) The Age of Develop- 
ment, from twenty or twenty-five to forty or for- 
ty-five; (2) The Age of Power, from forty or 
forty-five to sixty or sixty-five; (3) The Age of 
Decline, till death. 


I. Period of Development. 


1. During this period the mind and body ma- 
ture and reach their greatest strength. 

2. Reason and will are the dominating powers 
of the mind, and all teaching must be based on 
this fact. 

3. Men at this age are ambitious, courageous, 
and daring. They want something that is worthy 
of their mettle. The manliness of Christ, the 
heroism and courage of Daniel and Paul, the 
earnestness of Peter—characters such as these 
appeal to them. 

4. Women are greatly interested in all those 
things that go to make the home life happy. 
They, too, are ambitious, and glory in the success 
of their brothers, husbands, and sons, as well as 
in any success they themselves may achieve. 


And Power in the Sunday School. 199 


5. The purposeful foundations of home, of rep- 
utation, and of success are being laid, and hence 
much thought is given to the future when com- 
plete success shall crown their efforts, and when 
“their ship shall come in.” 

6. Troubles for the most part rest lightly. 
They look on the bright side of life, they face the 
rising sun, their shadows are all behind them. 

7. The teachers of this department should be 
men who are manly and women who are woman- 
ly, those who are making a reasonable success 
in life, and in whose tone there is the ring of vic- 
tory, and even the note of daring. Such teachers 
can lead such pupils, if they be Christians, to un- 
dertake great things for the Lord. 


II. Period of Power. 


1. At about forty or forty-five there is as great 
a change in body and mind as at the beginning 
of adolescence. It is really another “storm and 


, 


stress” period. It is a time when life’s forces 
are readjusting themselves, and it is a time when 
those who have not lived the life they ought 


to have lived fall into sin and crime. An exam- 


200 The Pastors Place of Privilege 


ination of the records shows that more crimes are 
committed at this age than at any other after ma- 
turity, and we are often dumfounded by persons 
falling into sin who we thought thoroughly 
established in the right. If ever the religion of 
the Lord Jesus Christ is needed to tide one over 
difficulties, it is now; if ever it is needed as an 
anchor to the soul, it is now. It is well for class- 
es of this age to have teachers a little older than 
themselves, as they will appreciate and know how 
to deal with their peculiar trials and difficulties. 

2. From forty or forty-five to sixty or sixty- 
five men and women are at their best physically 
and mentally. This, of course, on the condition 
that they have obeyed the laws of health and the 
moral laws of God and are healthy in body and 
mind. 

3. Most, if not all, of the characteristics of the 
first period are present in this, but in a more sub- 
dued and solid form. Men and women are sure 
of themselves at this age, if ever. The expe- 
riences of life have given them confidence, and 
while perhaps they are less daring and a little 
more cautious, still they are urged on by a con- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 201 


sciousness of power; and while they move a little 
more slowly, it is none the !ess surely. 

4. The troubles of life gradually assume a more 
serious form, and sometimes the shadows thick- 
en around their feet, but still hope is strong and 
the power of resistance great. 

5. They live a little more in the past and a 
little more in the present than in the former 
period. 

6. During this age family ties are being broken 
by marriage and death, and an overwhelming 
desire for sympathy takes possession of those 
who are thus bereft. This gives a great oppor- 
tunity to the teacher to firmly establish them in 
the faith and to turn their attention to the con- 
soling power of the gospel. 


III, Period of Decline. 


1. At this age the forces of the body and mind 
have reached their climax of power, and gradual- 
ly begin to decline. 

2. The trials and troubles of life have either 
sweetened and mellowed the disposition or have 
made it sour and morose. 


202 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


3. People of this age live mostly in the past. 
If they ever looked forward, it is usually to the 
land beyond. There is nothing else they enjoy 
so much as to talk over old times and to hear 
again the songs and stories of their childhood. 

4. The teacher should be about the same age 
or a little older than his class. He should be 
one whose life is sweetened and mellowed by the 
experience of the passing years—one who knows 
by experience the consoling power of the love of 
God, and one who can bring sympathy and help 
to the poverty-stricken in soul. 

5. The teaching should appeal mostly to the 
feelings and should have to do with things eternal 
rather than temporal. As the songs of the long 
ago are sung, and as reminiscences of the bygone 
years are recalled, tears will trickle down the 
careworn faces; but they are tears that stir emo- 
tions connecting a happy past on earth with a 
glorious future in heaven, and they will strength- 
en the dear old souls to await with patience the 
coming of the Master. It is a glorious privilege 
to teach a class like this, and every Sunday school 
should have one. It will exert an influence that 


And Power in the Sunday School. 203 


the school stands sadly in need of and which can 
come from no other source. 


HOW INSTINCTS BECOME HABITS. 


Many of the instincts of childhood seem to us 
“grown-ups” as not only unnecessary, but even 
as nuisances. Why is it that the child must imi- 
tate everything he sees done, and, unlike “Med- 
dlesome Mattie,’ get us into trouble instead of 
himself? Why does he have such an insatiable 
curiosity and such a capacity for asking ques- 
tions? We can see no use in them, especially as 
many of them seem to vanish with childhood? 
But do they really vanish? Never. Instead, 
they become the most useful habits of life. Let 
us investigate some of the more prominent. 

1. The Instinct of Activity or Play Becomes 
the Habit of Industry—The little one is always 
moving, never quiet. True, his actions seem to 
have no purpose, but he is learning; and by and 
by, when he begins to apply his activities persist- 
ently to some great purpose, then we have the in- 
dustrious man. Play is the business of childhood, 
It is a sin against the child and his Maker not to 


204 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


provide outlets for the ceaseless activity. To try 
to stippress it is a crime. To guide and train it is 
a duty. 

2. The Instinct of Inquisitiveness Becomes the 
Habit of Investigation—Why does a child ask 
so many questions, and should he be encouraged 
init? Just think, he comes into the world know- 
ing nothing, and most parents are too much con- 
cerned with their own affairs to busy themselves 
with the “foolish” questions of their children. 
How is he to find out, if he doesn’t ask? What a 
mistake to ignore or rebuff his questions! In 
the first place, it drives him from the parent; and 
in the next place, it dries up the fountain of his 
young life. If properly encouraged, he soon 
finds out all he can from his parents and other 
members of the family, then he finds out all he 
can from playmates, then from school, then from 
books, and still he is not satisfied. He now begins 
to delve into the great unknown, and we have the 
original investigator, an inventor, or a discoverer 
in the world of thought and action. It started 
with a question; it ends with new worlds discov- 
ered. Children should be encouraged to ask 


And Power in the Sunday School. 205 


questions and should be assisted and guided as 
they undertake to apply the knowledge thus ac- 
quired. 

3. The Instinct of Curiosity Becomes the Habit 
of Permanent Interest—When a child has enough 
curiosity to want to find out about a thing, that 
is an evidence that his mind is ready to receive 
information about it. This .is the time to teach 
him. Curiosity is an evidence of interest, this 
leads to investigation, and interest is developed 
more and more till it becomes permanent and 
abiding. Isn’t it worth while to direct the child’s 
curiosity and help him into a permanent interest 
in the great problems of life? 

4. The Instinct of Imitation Becomes the Hab- 
it of Application—What is the real meaning of 
imitation? Simply this: that the child is trying 
to apply what little knowledge he has, and is act- 
ing in accordance with one of the most profound 
laws of our being—viz., that we learn to do by do- 
ing. As he grows older he learns more, and hence 
applies more if encouraged in it. If properly 
trained, he soon learns to apply his knowledge, 
and he becomes a man of great worth because he 


206 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


is able to make a practical application of his 
knowledge to the problems of life. 

5. The Instinct of Trust Becomes the Habit 
of Faith—Perhaps it is not strictly true that 
trust is an instinct or faith a habit, but it is true 
that the implicit faith of the child in its parents 
is the first rung of that ladder that reaches up to 
faith in God. The sainted H. Clay Trumbull 
gave this experience at a Sunday school meeting: 
“T remember many years ago a little boy on a 
trundle-bed, having just retired for the night. 
Before going to sleep he turned in the direction 
of the large bed on which his father lay and 
said, ‘Father, are you there?’ and he answered, 
“Yes, my son;’ and then the little boy asked, “Will 
you take care of me to-night? and he said, “Yes, 
my son.’ I remember that that little boy turned 
over and went to sleep without a thought of harm. 
To-night this little boy is an old man of seventy, 
and every night before going to sleep he looks 
up into the face of his Heavenly Father and says, 
‘Father, are you there?’ and the answer comes 
back, ‘Yes, my son;’ and then he asks in childish 
faith, ‘Will you take care of me to-night?’ and the 


And Power in the Sunday School. 207 


answer comes back clear and strong, ‘Yes, my 
son.” And the simple faith of this little boy 
in his earthly father was that on which the great 
faith of H. Clay Trumbull in his Heavenly Father 
was founded. 

6. The Instinct of Play Becomes the Habit of 
Work.—Play is really the labor of childhood. 
In its play the child shows those characteristics 
that will make for success or failure just as un- 
mistakably as the man does in his work. The 
kindergarten is founded on the instinct for play 
and on the fact that instincts can be trained into 
habits of usefulness. There is no more fruitful 
source of investigation for parents and teachers 
than the play of children. Here is where they 
apply the knowledge they have gained and show 
the impression and influence it has on their young 
lives, 

7. The Instinct for Fighting Becomes the 
Habit of Overcoming.—It is almost as natural 
for children to fight as it is for them to eat. God 
puts the instinct there, as he does all others, for 
a purpose. The child or man who attacks any- 
thing with a desire to overcome it is fighting that 


208 The Pastor's Place of Privilege 


thing; but, unless it is another boy or another 
man, we usually do not call it a fight. Now, the 
parent or teacher who tries to crush out this spir- 
it of fight is himself fighting not only against the 
child but against God. He was put over the child 
not to crush out this spirit, but to direct it. 
Electricity is a dangerous thing when not proper- 
ly directed; so is the spirit of fight. But when 
properly trained and directed, it becomes the 
power that overcomes sin and evil and all manner 
of obstacles in the path of progress. 

8. Other Examples.—It is not always easy to 
distinguish between an instinct and a budding fac- 
ulty of mind. Here are some changes similar to 
the above that are important to remember: (1) 
Verbal memory of childhood becomes logical 
memory of manhood. Children can remember 
words, even when they have no meaning ; but it is 
a difficult thing for them to express the thoughts 
of their lessons in their own words. The reason 
is that the logical faculty is not yet developed, and 
there is not, perhaps, the danger we sometimes 
think in having children commit words and defini- 
tions whose meaning they do not fully under- 


And Power in the Sunday School. 209 


stand, provided we are careful to see that a wrong 
meaning is not given. Words are the vehicles of 
thoughts ; and when the child is gaining a vocabu- 
lary, he is laying the track over which future 
trains of thought shall speed to and fro bearing 
the richest products of the mind. (2) The volatile 
imagination of childhood becomes the construct- 
ive imagination of manhood. All the progress 
the world has ever made has been through the 
imagination. Not only the poet and the paint- 
er, but the investigator and the inventor must 
depend upon the imagination to reveal to 
him the hidden treasures of thought and 
weave them into unknown, beautiful, or utilitarian 
designs. No faculty of the mind needs more 
careful training in home and in school than the 
imagination. (3) The stubbornness of childhood 
is the foundation on which to build a strong and 
vigorous will. Stubbornness in an adult is not 
will power, but the lack of it. In the child it is 
different. The character of his will is shown in 
his determination to do or not to do certain things 
that are distasteful to him. This disposition 


needs to be dealt with wisely and persistently. 
14 


210 The Pastor’s Place of Privilege. 


Gentle, but stern, measures may often have to be 
resorted to; but when the child once learns that 
there is a will stronger than his own, he will grad- 
ually learn to yield; and this is a lesson we all 
have to learn sooner or later. It is only in recent 
years that we have learned that the will is really 
the fountain of all moral and religious issues. 
It was common a few years ago to direct all 
moral and religious instruction to the feelings, 
which for young children is right, but for older 
children we should aim at the will through the 
feelings. 


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